The following is the sixth in a seven-part series on American energy security by U.S. Representative Jo Ann Emerson.

“You’ve heard the saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?  Well, one man’s trash is definitely another man’s energy.

In Denmark, geothermal energy could someday soon account for 30 percent of the heating needs outside Copenhagen by using geothermal energy and 20 percent of the heating costs inside the capital city, according to the Copenhagen Post.  Right now, 1.6 million Danish homes are connected to a district heating network with radiators which use water warmed by trash-to-energy incinerators at two Copenhagen sites.  Experts say all that is needed to switch over to geothermal energy is some extra pumping equipment to substantially boost that figure.

In America, the biggest buzz circulates around fusion reactors – a technology that would create massive amounts of clean energy with minimal waste by joining atoms (rather than splitting them as in a nuclear reaction).  The payoff, as well as the cost, of the new technology is staggering.

Other ideas described in a recent edition of Scientific American have more the appeal of a science fiction novel.

 
High-altitude wind is a futuristic energy-producing technology that would take advantage of the wind power in the jet stream.  Existing wind-power technologies only tap the resources of moving air at low altitudes.  At 33,000 feet, however, the energy that can be created by harnessing the wind is exponential.  At low altitudes, an average of 1.7 watts of energy can be produced by wind power per square meter of the earth.  Even then, the harvest of energy is inconsistent.  At high altitudes in strategic locations, an average of 5,000 to 10,000 watts of energy per square meter are possible.  Sketches of these technologies feature kites and spinning generators tethered to the ground far below.

Far-off solar technologies range from the very large to the very small.  Space-based solar power would involve giant platforms orbiting the earth, built with robots, to capture huge amounts of the sun’s power.  Nanotechnology gives us a more realistic option: tiny crystals, wires and particles that capture the sun’s energy in photovoltaic cells which put more of the wavelength in the solar spectrum to work in panels that can heat and power a home or business.

And what goes better with the sun than the ocean?  The ocean energy leader at the Electric Power Research Institute estimates ocean energy to be 20 years behind wind power.  Generators that capture the power of waves and tides are in development in Britain (where experts think they can harness the sea to eventually provide 20 percent of the nation’s electricity), Portugal and China. 

Of course, most of these ideas are many years away from supplying the huge amounts of energy of which they are capable.  Now is the time to think and dream big, however.  As we continue to put our best scientific minds to work at universities in Missouri and around the nation, developing these technologies will be one task, making them workable and economical will be another.

From wind to water, from tiny cells to huge solar platforms, from trash to treasure, the world is full of opportunities to curb our dependence on foreign fossil fuels.”

Next week: Full Circle on the Farm: The circle of life of renewable alternative fuels.