A reader just asked me this: Doesn’t all our energy come from the sun? Fossil fuels are old sunlight, and anything else we burn is new sunlight. We have to burn this one way or the other, and that creates …
Category: Renewables – Science
Advice on Inventing a New Source of Renewable Energy
A young reader asks for advice: My name is Cole, and I’m 15 years old. My future plan is to start a company named Nova. Nova supports renewable energy sources. I want to make a new renewable energy source that …
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Outrageous Energy Sources of the Future
Every week or so, someone sends me an article from a popular magazine that covers futuristic sources of energy. I’d sound rather like the Grinch if I said I objected to publications like this, though I have to confess that …
Discussion on “Free Energy”
A reader asks for my comments as follows: I am not a technician but a Free Energy lover – (I’ve spent) more than 30 years trying to understand Nikola Tesla patents as the first approach to free energy. (Now I’m …
Renewable Energy Technologies: New Concepts
I’m always happy to receive and comment on new ideas in renewable energy technology. If you happen to be sitting on a business plan, or just a raw idea, and you’d like my opinion on it (at no charge), please send …
Zero Point Energy
A friend sent me this article on Zero Point Energy, the theory that even empty space contains a non-zero amount of energy. This is ultimately a result of the fact that exactly zero energy would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. …
Storing Solar Energy with Supercapacitors
A reader asked if supercapacitors are a good solution for storing solar energy. The short answer to the question is no. Capacitors have cost-effectiveness only in high power-density applications, i.e., those in which a large amount of energy needs to …
A World of Great Possibilities
On the surface, this post is almost 100% off-subject, though I know readers who enjoy a good story will appreciate the Writer’s Almanac’s blurb on today’s 67th anniversary of the opening of “ A Streetcar Named Desire” on Broadway. For some …
A Brief History of Renewable Energy
There are many small things that bring me delight in my role as “curator” of this site, one of which is the numerous requests I get from people all over the world to use the content here in ways I …
The First Moon Landing, Carl Sagan, and Civilization’s Appreciation for Science
I met a fellow yesterday who was in the control room in Houston in 1969 when the first man walked on the moon. I asked him if he was aware that there exists a conspiracy theory to the effect that …
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