Our Energy Challenge

1. Our Energy Challenge IEEE 31st Photovoltaic , Specialist Conference Orlando, Fla. January 4, 2005 R. E. Smalley Rice University

2. Humanity’s Top Ten Problemsfor next 50 years • ENERGY • WATER • FOOD • ENVIRONMENT • POVERTY • TERRORISM & WAR • DISEASE • EDUCATION • DEMOCRACY • POPULATION 2004 6.5 Billion People 2050 ~ 10 Billion People

3. World Energy Millions of Barrels per Day (Oil Equivalent) 300 200 100 0 1860 1900 1940 1980 2020 2060 2100 Source: John F. Bookout (President of Shell USA) ,“Two Centuries of Fossil Fuel Energy” International Geological Congress, Washington DC; July 10,1985. Episodes, vol 12, 257-262 (1989). see “Uppsala Code” analysis of IEA 2004 Outlook by Kjell Aleklett on www.peakoil.net

4. Global warming over the past millennium Very rapidly we have entered uncharted territory -– what some call the anthropocene climate regime. Over the 20th century, human population quadrupled and energy consumption increased sixteenfold. Near the end of the last century, we crossed a critical threshold, and global warming from the fossil fuel greenhouse became a major, and increasingly dominant, factor in climate change. Global mean surface temperature is higher today than it’s been for at least a millennium. Slide from Marty Hoffert NYU

5. The ENERGY REVOLUTION (The Terawatt Challenge) 14.5 Terawatts 220 M BOE/day 30 -- 60 Terawatts 450 – 900 MBOE/day The Basis of Prosperity 20st Century = OIL 21st Century = ??

6. PRIMARY ENERGY SOURCESAlternatives to Oil TOO LITTLE • Conservation / Efficiency -- not enough • Hydroelectric -- not enough • Biomass -- not enough • Wind -- not enough • Wave & Tide -- not enough CHEMICAL • Natural Gas -- sequestration?, cost? • Clean Coal -- sequestration?, cost? NUCLEAR • Nuclear Fission -- radioactive waste?, terrorism?, cost? • Nuclear Fusion -- too difficult?, cost? • Geothermal HDR -- cost ? , enough? • Solar terrestrial -- cost ? • Solar power satellites -- cost ? • Lunar Solar Power -- cost ?

7. World Energy Schemefor 30-60TW in 2050:The Distributed Store-Gen Grid • Energy transported as electrical energy over wire, rather than by transport of mass (coal, oil, gas) • Vast electrical power grid on continental scale interconnecting ~ 100 million asynchronous “local” storage and generation sites, entire system continually innovated by free enterprise • “Local” = house, block, community, business, town, … • Local storage = batteries, flywheels, hydrogen, etc. • Local generation = reverse of local storage + local solar and geo • Local “buy low, sell high” to electrical power grid • Local optimization of days of storage capacity, quality of local power • Electrical grid does not need to be very reliable • Mass Primary Power input to grid via HV DC transmission lines from existing plants plus remote (up to 2000 mile) sources on TW scale, including vast solar farms in deserts, wind, NIMBY nuclear, clean coal, stranded gas, wave, hydro, space-based solar…”EVERYBODY PLAYS” • Electricity, Diesel, Hydrogen and Methanol are the transportation fuels

8. Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes ( Buckytubes) • A New Miracle Polymer like Kevlar, Zylon, Spectra • The Strongest fiber that will ever be made. • Electrical Conductivity of Copper or GaAs. • Thermal Conductivity of Diamond. • The Chemistry of Carbon. • The size and perfection of DNA.

11. van Hove singularities Electronic States of Semiconducting SWNT

12. Nanotube Infrared Emitter Slide Courtesy of Phaedon Avouris, IBM Yorktown

13. SWNT Current Carrying Capacity over 109 amps/cm2 Hongjie Dai et. al. “High-Field Quasiballistic Transport In short Carbon Nanotubes” Phys. Rev. Lett. 92,106804 (2004) Weak Accoustic Phonon scattering lap ~ 300 nm Strong Optical Phonon scattering lop ~ 10 nm (threshold 0.15 eV)

14. Tube-to-Tube Quantum Tunneling Alper Buldum and Jian Ping Lu, Phys. Rev. B 63, 161403 R (2001). Buia, Buldum, and Lu, Phys. Rev. B 67, 113409 (2003).

15. QUANTUM WIRE PROJECT • ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY • OF COPPER AT 1/6 THE WEIGHT • WITH NEGLIGIBLE EDDY CURRENT LOSS • cut SWNT to short lengths (< 50 nm) • select out the (n,m) tubes with n=m • (the “armchair tubes”) • Attach catalyst to open ends • grow from these seeds to >10 micron lengths • ( “cloning”) • spin them into continuous fibers • SWNT cloning technology also enables • optimization of all other swnt applications • including molectronics, RFI shielding, sensors, • batteries, and microwave absorption

16. SWNT Fiber Spinning in OleumONR DURINT (4th yr of 5 yr grant)

17. Fiber Spinning in Progress Close-up

18. Take-up of Spun fiber

19. An overview of SWNT Fiber

20. A close look at the ropes

21. SWNT Amplification • Cut to short lengths (< 50 nm) • Solubilize in Ethanol • Attach catalyst • Inject into reactor and grow clone • Harvest cloned product • Feedback to step 1 • (start with initial swnt • Sorted & selected by end chemistry) Same old chemistry. But these organic molecules conduct electricity!

22. SWNT Amplifier CO + H2 feed Monoclonal SWNT Cloning Reactor 500 < T < 700 C SWNT+ FeMoC Catalyst ( input signal) Catalyst Prep. Gain = output/input = mass of product swnt / mass of swnt seeds 10 nm long seeds  10 micron long product; gain ~ 1000

23. Cloning from Selected SWNT Seeds Attach FeMoC to swnt seed Deposit on Surface Growth in CO + H2 Reductive Docking in H2

24. Iron Molybdate Cluster ( FeMoC )a Precursor for SWNT Cloning Catalyst • Icosahedral capsule Mo(VI)72Fe(III)30 • Internal cavity diameter: ~16 Ǻ • Diameter: ~ 21 Ǻ • Keggin anion guest {[HxPMo12O40]3-} • Diameter: ~14 Ǻ Agnew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2000, 39, No. 19

25. Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory Making BuckyTubesBe All They Can Be. • Established at Rice Univ. - September, 2003 • Dr. Howard K. Schmidt - Executive Director • Dr. Robert H. Hauge – Technology Directo

26. The biggest single challenge for the next few decades: • ENERGY • for 1010 people • . At MINIMUMwe need 10 Terawatts (150 M BOE/day) • from some new clean energy source by 2050 • For worldwide peace and prosperity we need it to be cheap. • We simply can not do this with current technology. • We need Boys and Girls to enter Physical Science and Engineering as they did after Sputnik. • Inspire in them a sense of MISSION • ( BE A SCIENTIST SAVE THE WORLD ) • We need a bold new APOLLO PROGRAM • to find the NEW ENERGY TECHNOLOGY

27. The Nickel & Dime Solution • For FY05-FY10 collect 5 cents from every gallon of oil product Invest the resultant > $10 Billion per year as additional funding in frontier energy research distributed among DOE, NSF, NIST, NASA, and DoD. • For the next 10 years collect 10 cents from every gallon; invest the >$20 Billion per year in frontier energy research. • Devote a third of this money to New Energy Research Centers located adjacent to major US Research Universities. • At worst this endeavor will create a cornucopia of new technologies and new industries. • At best, we will solve the energy problem before 2020, and thereby lay the basis for energy prosperity & peace worldwide.

28. Reading Assignments • Out of Gas, Daniel Goodstein • The End of Oil, Paul Roberts • The Prize, Daniel Yergin • Hubbert’s Peak, Kenneth Deffeyes • Matt Simmons web site (www.simmons-intl.com) • ASPO web site ( www.peakoil.net) • Gal Luft web site (www.iags.org) • Amory Lovins web site (www.rmi.org) • M.I. Hoffert et. al., Science, 2002, 298, 981, • DOE BES Workshop Report on Hydrogen (www.sc.doe.gov/bes/hydrogen.pdf)