The human race, so far, has been through two almighty revolutions --
agriculture and industry. They both involved access to an entirely new form
of solar energy, whether contemporary or fossilized. This is the only "free
lunch" we have. Everything else has to be worked for. However, it must be
said straight away that, although economists are prolific in reminding us
that there are no free lunches, they themselves seldom think about energy
per se. In their training, student economists never learn about the basic
necessity of energy and that it permeates everything we do -- in peacetime
or wartime, for goods production or the supply of services.
Because energy, and its sister subject, thermodynamics, is taught to all
student scientists as the very core of their various disciplines then, for
the time being, the subject of economics will continue to dangle in the
air, neither a science nor an arts subject. However, economists in, say, a
couple of centuries' time, might well see energy in an entirely different
light (solar!) because, by then, fossil fuel energy will be exorbitantly
expensive and we will almost certainly be accessing the bulk of our basic
energy in an entirely different way.
It will be by the production of hydrogen. Unlike coal, oil or gas which
brings up underground radioactivity and scatters it everywhere on the
surface, damaging the DNA of life-forms, including ourselves, hydrogen will
be the perfect non-polluting fuel. It will only be derived as part of the
natural organic recycling processes which already takes place on the surface.
The total amount of energy that will be able to be derived from solar
power, via bacterial hydrogen, is prodigious -- at least several hundred
times greater than all the energy that we presently produce from fossil
fuels and other minor contributing technologies such as solar cells, wind
power or nuclear power (which all have to be subsidized by governments for
cost reasons -- and probably always will be).
The commercial prospects are so enormous that, in America, Craig Venter's
Institute and many other teams in academe and the US Department of Energy,
as well as many other teams in England, Germany, China and Singapore are
seeking a bacterium of minimal genetic size which will produce hydrogen as
its main by-product (along with daughter-cells, of course!). A custom-made
bacterium, fed with water, a few trace minerals and energized by sunlight
would be able to make hydrogen all day long -- that is, all daylight day long!
Because the commercial, as well as the humanistic, benefits of hydrogen are
so fantastic then you can be sure that the search for the bacterium with
the right blend of genes is already intensive. It isn't easy, however.
Although there are many hundreds of different types of naturally occurring
bacteria which already produce hydrogen for their own internal processes
there are none as yet which, as it were, produce hydrogen free to air.
One approach is to take an existing natural bacterium and trim its genes
away one by one until all it can do is to produce hydrogen (and daughter
cells from time to time!). The problem with this is that genes never act on
their own but only in association with others. If an apparently unnecessary
gene is trimmed away it might also stop another vital process. Another,
entirely opposite, approach is to find a natural bacterium with the
smallest number of genes and then to add new ones. But, once again, the
addition of a new hydrogen-producing gene might also cause other gene
associations which will do something quite different and will absorb all
the energy received from the sun and crowd out the hydrogen production.
Complex though the problem is, the hydrogen-seeking geneticists are aided
by a major fact of evolution. All the genes in a hydrogen-producing
bacterium are found in all other life-forms (together with many more genes,
of course). Thus there are hundreds more teams of research biologists which
are also researching the same genes, albeit incidentally and in different
contexts. There is constant feedback between all researchers in genetics. A
discovery of one particular gene made by a "hydrogen team" in a lab on side
part of the world might supply a vital piece of knowledge required by a
team researching a human cancer on the opposite side.
As a layman who takes an interest in genetics I can't possibly give an
informed opinion of when the first hydrogen-producing bacterium will be
realized. But the general tenor of opinion among biologists is that it
cannot be far away, despite the complexities that are involved. It might be
anytime from now onwards. I would guess that it is highly likely to be
achieved within 10 years and certainly within 50.
Just like agriculture 10,000 years ago or industrialization 300 or so years
ago the new biological era of energy will not come overnight, despite its
overwhelming advantages. And, like the previous two eras, it will in due
course probably bring about the most radical transformation in the way we
work and live. My breakfast is calling me urgently so I won't attempt to
try and discuss this further here. Suffice it to say, however, that because
energy will be able to be produced anywhere on earth with a respectable
amount of sunshine, then the new energy technology is likely, in my view,
to cause a long-term dispersal of habitations and work places out of the
concentrated urban settings we have today and towards smaller communities
again.
Keith
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