HOW BEST TO ATTAIN 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY SELF SUFFICIENCY

Let me start with a rather monumental report published by the International Energy Agency:

Net Zero by 2050

A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector

• There are 400 milestones to get there from here.  
• For success, the world will need to fully commit.  Hasn't happened yet.
• Most state or national efforts of this sort usually only address electricity.  This will be the easy part, for wind and solar options are well developed, with storage being the primary, and serious, concern.
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  What about aviation?  
• Nothing much is ongoing today to address this matter.  
• There is some mumbling about jet fuel from biomass, but every major attempt has failed to be economically competitive.  
• Part of the difficulty has been the collapse of oil prices, which were above $100/barrel for a while from 2010 to 2015, but has since then largely been below that level, more recently at around $80/barrel.

So for nostalgic Tuesday, let me go back to my posting of 20June2011 on JETFUEL FROM MACROALGAL PLANTATIONS.

• The United States has the largest Exclusive Economic Zone (the 200 nautical mile region surrounding land--about 30,000,000 square miles, of which 85% is in the Pacific--in comparison, the land area of the USA is close to 25,000,000 square miles).   Thus, the U.S. has more seawater than land ownership.  France is #2, followed by Australia, Russia, UK, New Zealand, Indonesia, Canada, Japan and Chile.  Thus, all these countries (UK through Commonwealth countries) touch the Pacific. 

I also quoted from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean:

The photosynthetic efficiency of aquatic biomass with an average 6 to 8% is much higher than the average photosynthetic efficiency of 1.8 to 2.2% for terrestrial biomass (Aresta et al., 2005a).

Thus, a rough average is that aquatic biomass is three times more efficient in converting sunlight into mass than land crops, where there is no additional cost for irrigation, plus the fertilizer is free if the effluent from an OTEC facility is used. 

All the effort so far has been to convert land biomass into biofuels.  However, given so much space, algae is far more efficient in converting sunlight into biomass.

Further, marine microalgae is more efficient than marine macroalgae, which was the focus of my 20July2011 blog.

So to produce biofuels for jetliners, the ultimate ideal would be to utilize microalgae.  I had a Huffington Post article in 2011:  Biofuels from Microalgae (Part 1).  A couple of months later I wrote on:  The Future of Sustainable Aviation.

More and more you are seeing headlines such as this from the New York Times:

AI:  World likely to hit key warming threshold in 10-12 years

AI stands for artificial intelligence, which also more and more seems to be encroaching into our lives.  Anyway, this article by Seth Borenstein reports on a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study indicating that we will reach the limit of increasing the temperature of 2.7 F between 2033 and 2035.

So what is the transition from today to total renewable energy self-sufficiency?

• Shift from fossil fuel-based gasoline/jetfuel-powered vehicles to electricity, methanol, other biofuels and hydrogen.  

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  It could well be that the best biofuel is bio-methanol, because this is the only liquid which can be used by a fuel cell, which is a lot more efficient than batteries when you look at the total energy cycle.  Biomethanol is renewable methanol.

• 
  Develop green hydrogen.
• Develop the hydrogen jetliner.  In 2011 I also posted on NEXT GENERATION AIRSHIPS.  Since then, essentially nothing new has been accomplished.
• Continue to perfect fusion.

As well-meaning as efforts might be, the actual effectiveness of the ultimate societal response will be the seriousness of global warming itself.  

• Most fossil fuel companies will in their own ways be resistant, for giving up will doom their future.   Their strategy will be to delay, delay, delay.  

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  Countries dependent on fossil fuels will mostly be non-cooperative.  The United Arab Emirates is surprisingly taking a leadership role by hosting the next COP28, and their attitude seems sincere.
• Some countries like India and China will seem to be collaborative, while pleading for fairness that the U.S. has had the advantage of using fossil fuels to attain our current status, so they need some time  to transition away.

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  Numerous nations will need foreign aid to overcome.  A good example are the islands of the Maldives.  They will almost certainly be overwhelmed by sea level rise over the next half a century, and are already taking significant steps by planning for future cities that will be linked, but float as necessary.  Such a solution will be very expensive, something they cannot afford.

I've long felt that any international agreement will just not be sufficient until a particularly hot summer kills tens of millions, or something else as cataclysmic occurs.  A dozen Category 5 hurricanes causing a trillion dollar total damage would be effective in engendering real cooperation.  Maybe even a Category 6.  You can easily come up with similar scenarios.  Geoengineering of Planet Earth will take time, so things will only get a lot worse if nothing is done now to plan for the worst.

So what is the ultimate solution?

• I don't think the world will sufficiently arrive at a political solution in time.
• In the meantime, I can only offer one view of a pathway for leaders to consider.
• Initiate a grand plan to evaluate all the geoengineering options.  I wrote this Huffington Post article 15 years ago:  Geoengineering of Climate Change.  Actual full-scale implementation under any condition will be decades away.
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  Embark on an optimal transition to wean Humanity away from fossil fuels.
• Electric cars will remain key.  However, the lithium battery has limitations.
• Fuel cell vehicles are a lot more efficient.  But hydrogen is today too expensive to produce, and will remain so for several decades, unless a severe carbon tax changes the economics.  This was a HuffPo of 12 years ago:  Is there an Option More Promising than the Plug-In Electric Vehicle?  The direct biomethanol fuel cell would be a nice transition until hydrogen becomes competitive.
• 
  Full court press to develop non-battery options for electricity storage.  Read this article.  Adding storage to the production cost of renewable electricity will be expensive, especially so for batteries.
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  Thus, accelerate the development of fusion electricity.  ITER in France features magnetic confinement, which I've always thought was not optimal.  The inertial confinement method of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has more promise.  In any case, commercialization of either option will not be until 2050, with 2075 being more realistic.  We can hope that one of these fusion reaction processes can be tamed, for this is the process used by the Sun and all the stars.
• 
  But then, there remains aviation, which cannot use electricity.  The lightest and cleanest fuel is hydrogen.  While biofuel jetliners will someday begin to replace fossil jet fuel, this should only be a transition.  Some combination of Rinaldo Brutoco's fast dirigible and the National Aerospace Plane will someday dominate the skies.  Reportedly, Brutoco recently gained Series A funding to continue development.  Not much being said by the Department of Defense about their involvement of any black program linked to their plane that would go 25 time faster than the speed of sound.

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SHOULD OLDER PEOPLE DRINK ALCOHOL AND COFFEE?

The medical profession generally discourages alcohol drinking at any age.  Basically, alcohol has caused traffic accidents, ruined family relationships and generally harmed the body of those who drink to excess.  For example, alcohol is a factor in about:

• 30% of suicides.
• 30% of fatal motor vehicle crashes.
• 40% of fatal burn injuries.
• 50% of fatal drownings and homicides.
• 65% of fatal falls.

Over the past few decades, though,  research has shown that:

• Moderate drinking makes you 25% to 40% less likely to have a heart attack, stroke or suffer from hardening of your arteries.

• 
  Turns out that "small" amounts of alcohol can raise your high density lipoprotein (HDL), which removes other forms of cholesterols from your body, thus lowering the risk of heart disease.
• Alcohol also increases bone density and brain health.
• Alcohol does enhance mood, relax you and aid in combatting insomnia.
• 70% of American adults drink alcohol.  Which ones are best?

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  Red wine contains antioxidants, which is good for your heart system.  White and rose also contain them, but in smaller quantities.
• Champagnes are high in phenolic compounds which can reduce the risk of dementia. One study showed that champagne improved memory in AGED rodents.

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  Mice consuming the agave tequila plant increased calcium absorption and improve bone health.  Tequila?  Not confirmed.
• Whiskey also has an antioxidant effect, and may help decrease heart disease.  Dark chocolate might be better.
• 
  Here is something I've got to try, kombucha.  Fermented black tea came from China and also became popular in Russia. Hard kombuchas have become the latest adult beverage of choice among health-conscious drinkers!  Some kombucha makers are fermenting their brew to a kind of beer, from 4.5% to 8.0% ethanol.  Unity Vibration Kombucha ranges from 7% to 8% alcohol.  Sierra Nevada has Straing Beast at 7%.  Tastes like sour beer.  This drink can reduce blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while aiding digestion and preventing cancer.  However, much of this is hearsay and not medicaly proven.  The original kombucha is a fermented drink (less than 0.5% alcohol) made with tea, sugar, bacteria and yeast.

Now this will confuse some, if not many.  

• Japan also has kombucha, BUT made from SEAWEED.  Thus, the Japanese a very long time ago came up with a drink called called kombucha from seaweed, but totally different from the version that was much earlier created in China, from that land plant called tea.  

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  As far as I know, Japanese kombucha has little to no alcohol.  At least I don't remember seeing any when I visited Japan...but that was three years ago.  You might have seen Hard Kombucha:  Blueberry Yuzu (5.5% ABV), that sounds Japanese.  However, it is brewed in the U.S. and made from green tea.
• Much of the seaweed (more properly, koNbu, but more recently expanded also to koMbu), is for flavor enhancement, the application for at least a thousand years.  Only early in the 20th century did Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda, find that konbu was exceptionally high in monosodium glutamate (MSG), which led to the company, Ajinomoto.
• There four primary types of konbu, each with a slightly different flavor.
• These are other types of non-konbu (kombu) seaweed:  nori, wakame and arame.

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  How much alcohol should you drink?
• One drink/day for women and 2 drinks/day for men...but for those 65 and younger.
• How much is one drink? Look to the right.  A typical bottle of wine in the USA is 25.4 ounces.  If you have two males drinking, you can each drink almost half the bottle, but leave around 5 ounces in the bottle.
• Supposedly, the older you get, the less one should drink alcohol.
• One drink/day is generally advised, and no more than three on any one day.
• Moderate drinking will enhance a healthy lifestyle.

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  Doctors prescribe atorvastatin (Lipitor) and simvastatin (Zocor) to lower LDL and raise HDL.
• Exercising can lower triglycerides (fat) and increase HDL levels.  How much?  Varies with source, but 60 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise combined with some strength training will do wonders for you.

Gallup has had an annual poll about alcoholic beverages.  Here is just one question.

So can old people still drink alcohol?  Of course, with moderation, like anyone, and maybe more moderation.  I worry about some of my dinner tables at 15 Craigside, and am petrified about our upcoming 53-day cruise, which has no limitation on alcoholic drinks.  I need to significantly modify my attitude about drinking on travel:  any free drink not drunk is money wasted.

I've never drunk much coffee in my life.  When I was younger, coffee was prohibited anyway.  As I aged, I never picked up this habit, as most of medical science thought coffee drinking was a negative.  Then more recently, coffee gained in reputation, and, in fact, I'm looking at an article entitled Why Coffee is a Health Food for Older Adults, which I'll report on later.  For now, from Coffee:  Consumption and Health Implications: (And, by the way, I noticed that the Kindle and Hardcover price are both $125).

Scientific understandings of how coffee affects health have been closely linked to the moral and political discourses of the changing times. Inquiries into coffee began in the 16th century, as Europeans wrestled with understanding the effects of this newly introduced beverage. These early studies built on the nascent fields of chemistry and physiology to examine how coffee stimulated the body. Coffee invoked strong scientific and moral opinions about its effects, and its portrayal in the literature has swung from seeing it as the cause of a variety of conditions to seeing it as a potential cure for an equally impressive range of ailments. Most recent studies on the bioactivity of coffee emphasize its salubrious potential, and popular opinion and health promotion policies are changing their recommendations accordingly.

  

Here is something from European dietitians:

A new report by the European Federation of the Associations of Dietitians (EFAD), supported by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), has revealed that almost two-thirds (62%) of European dietitians believe drinking coffee in moderation has clear health benefits, with 86% agreeing that regular moderate intake can improve alertness and 69% agreeing that regular, moderate intake is associated with an improvement in overall sports performance.

Of course, I've long known that coffee was a positive.  Read my posting of over a decade ago.

What about that article of coffee being a health food for older adults:

• Research shows that coffee can help prevent dementia, improve cardiovascular health and increase lifespan.
• For one, caffeine has lost that bad reputation, and is now referred to as an anti-oxidant to delay aging.
• Coffee keeps cells elastic, reducing hardening of the arteries.
• Reduces strokes by up to 22%.
• Cuts the risk of mouth, throat and other cancers by 50%, as well as Type 2 diabetes.
• Increases motivation and alertness.
• Increases longevity.

How much caffeine?

How much coffee should you drink daily?

• Most studies say 3 to 5 8-ounce cups, or up to 400 milligrams of caffeine/day.
• That amount reduces the risk of suicide for both men and women by 50%, and overall risk of early death by 15%.  This latter statistic holds true even for decaf drinkers.  Thus, in addition to caffeine there are other beneficial molecules in coffee.
• There might be a tendency for elders to reduce the caffeine content.  Don't reach for lighter roast,
• You negate the positive effect of coffee by adding cream, sugar and anything else that add calories and fat.

How to best brew coffee?  And this, indeed, is surprising to me.

• The type of brewing can make a big difference in minimizing LDL cholesterol.
• Filtered coffee keeps out dangerous oily chemicals diterpenes.

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  Using a French press is not so good in lowering triglyceride and bad cholesterol.
• Cold brew coffee made by steeping the grounds in cold water for a period of hour, then strained through a paper filter, is also recommended for iced coffee lovers.

The right way to drink coffee:

• The ideal time to have your initial sip is not on awakening, but 60 to 90 minutes after waking up.  Why?  Coffee disturbs the production of cortisol, which tells you to wake up and be alert.  It takes that long to reach your natural cortisol peak.
• The common belief is that 98% of coffee taste is due to the water you use.  Somehow, I find it hard to believe this is true, in consideration of how far coffee lovers go to find and pay for expensive beans.
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  Go for a NAPPUCCINO!  That is, drink your afternoon cup of coffee just BEFORE your nap. 
• Caffeine takes about 20 minutes to kick-in.  Hopefully you will be asleep before then.  
• Plus, with coffee, you won't sleep too long.  
• The medical recommendation is that you should only nap for 10-20 minutes.  Longer naps make you groggy and disoriented, and most important of all, make it harder to get a good night's sleep.  
• Worse, research shows that daytime naps longer than an hour are associated with a higher risk of heart disease and dying from all causes.

• 
  There is an exception.  If you get sleep-deprived, for whatever reason, a nap of at least 90 minutes to provide a complete full cycle sleep could be beneficial.
• There are numerous judgement calls when it comes to naps and sleep.

Mind you, you should be aware that there are downsides to coffee:

• Caffeine is the enemy of good sleep.
• Diarrhea and gastrointestinal issues can occur because of the high acid content.
• Rapid heart rate.
• Dehydration, putting stress on your kidneys.
• Elevated blood pressure.
• Will interfere with certain drugs like ephedrine, echinacea and theophylline.

To summarize, in consultation with your personal physician, older people should be able to drink alcoholic drinks and coffee in moderation.  These beverages can enhance your lifestyle, health and longevity.

Well, here is a beer video from America's Got Talent featuring Dom Chambers.

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A MOSTLY SPIRITUAL POSTING

Religion was not a particularly important part of my youth into adulthood, and remains so today.  My parents were Buddhists, but nothing too spiritual.  It was mostly cultural.

As our home in Kakaako was only a block or so from a large park owned by a Christian church, I spent a lot time there, and sort of became a Christian. In any case, my knowledge of religion was minimal.  So when I began to write Simple Solutions for Humanity, I had to begin educating myself by reading books like:

B. Toropov and L. Buckles, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the World’s Religions [IDIOT], Alpha Books, New York, 1997. This could well have been my first and favorite book on religion. I was brought up a Buddhist, attended a neighborhood Christian church because it had a fun summer school program, went through a few months of Catechism in high school, joined a Nisei Methodist Church because that was socially convenient, participated in Presbyterian rituals at Stanford University, went back to Buddhism during my sugar plantation work period because of social pressures and gravitated towards active intellectual searches later in life.  But I never took that early religious stuff seriously, and was able to synthesize a knowledge of religion for the very first time because the Idiot series is written for people like me.

From Simple Solutions for Humanity, Part 6, I compared Santa Claus to God.  To quote:

 

Santa Claus and God are almost eerily similar. In my mind, they are both Anglo-Saxon males who promise gifts or a reward if you are good. Christmas celebrates the birthday of God’s only son, Jesus, and the eve is when Santa operates. Many, men in particular, once believed in Santa Claus, then, reached a maturity that told them better, but, not long after that, became Santa Claus, and later in life, looked like him. So goes the joke, anyway.

In Part 7 I touched on how adults universally collude to dupe children about the reality of Santa Claus.  I long wondered why we grow up and almost all stop believing in Santa Claus, but perhaps 90% of Americans continue to believe in God everlastingly.  

This blog site goes on into Part 46 on the Golden Evolution, where Humanity survives a global test of monumental proportions:

Step One, to challenge our survival: a cataclysmic series of events, such as, perhaps, oil suddenly jumping to $200/barrel and tens of millions perishing through global heating one hot summer, with the prospects of Planet Earth converting to Planet Venus (where the surface temperature is 900°F, see Chapter 5 in Book 1) to arise with such fury that all elements of Mankind compellingly unite and take coordinated action, which would be Step Two. Having overcome this global crisis (let’s be at least positive about the outcome), Step Three would be that evolutionary transcendence towards a higher respect for the environment and a fading away of the supreme being concept.  (One by-product would be peace on earth forever.)

I went on to say:

As we today don’t need a feared deity to serve as an enforcer, for earlier reported studies have shown that most of our citizens, religious or not, choose the righteous and ethical pathway in life, maybe we can shift our belief and have faith in ourselves, instead. Mind you, there really isn’t any real requirement for worshipping as such, but, in the transition, as our current society appears to have a psychological need for some higher order symbol, perhaps Planet Earth can serve as that tangible object. Instead of depending on our environment to take care of us, though, while in the midst of overcoming Peak Oil and Greenhouse Effect, the Golden Evolution will be the process by which we switch roles and take on the necessary task for remediation and sustainability as a common goal for humanity. In time, and this may take many millennia, we will then expand our vision to our Galaxy as our domain. In anticipation, Book 3 could well be called SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for the Whole Universe.

To end this Sunday posting, here is a You Tube site someone sent me, a compilation of the most popular song each month in the 1960's.  Took me through junior year in college, through my sugar years, then into graduate school.  Watched the whole thing in 25 minutes.  There were so many where I immediately linked to something I was doing that month of that year.  Hairstyles changed.  Elvis had a lot of hits in the early years, but the Beatles midway began to dominate to the end of the decade.  The final two songs were Elvis singing Suspicious Minds in November of 1969, ending with the Beatles' Something.  Many songs I had not heard for more than half a century.  Saw what some performers looked like for the first time.  What memories.  Only three or four were vaguely familiar.  If I were to go through this from 2000-2020, perhaps only three or four would be recognizable each decade.

• 
  While I enjoyed that, if you're my age, the songs of the 1950's might have actually been more memorable.  I'll return after I send out this posting.

• 

  But for younger folks, what about the '70s?  Well, heck, then, the '80s, ''90s  and '2000s.  Pick your decade, or watch them all.  This is, after all, Sunday.  Got anything better to do?  Well, maybe the NFL playoffs.  The Super Bowl in two weeks.
• If you're short of time, Uniquely Madison took only 11 minutes to string together a century of American music.  She did a great job.

Finally, last night on Saturday Night Live they spoofed the confidential documents scandal of Joe Biden and others, and even worked in a Kamala Harris insult.

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