Everyone living on this planet should understand the grave consequences humanity will face if we don’t seriously limit our use of fossil fuels. Over the past few centuries, we have been carelessly burning carbon-based fuels for energy, not paying attention to the damages that may occur in the future. By burning fossil fuels, we are re-releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that was previously removed from the Earth by animal and plant life millions of years ago. Why does this matter?
All of the global ecosystems and species (including us) have adapted to a lower level of atmospheric CO2—the level it was at pre Industrial Revolution. Since we started burning up fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas), CO2 and other “greenhouse” gasses have entered back into the atmosphere, “exacerbating climate change and extreme weather that threatens the survival of many organisms and human societies.” Since no one can “see” these gasses filling the air, and because the Earth’s climate changes relatively slow from humanity’s perspective, people tend to ignore the intense reality of our situation. How bad has it really become?
The window of time to avert the worst possible consequences is growing thin. From 1750, around the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels have grown exponentially. Even though scientists have been warning government officials of the hazards that lay ahead if we continue along this path, the rate of carbon emissions has increased 3 percent annually the first decade of this century. To put things into a grand perspective: For some 800,000 years, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere did not go above 300 parts per million (ppm). However, in the 250 years following the start of the Industrial Revolution, enough CO2 built up to bring the average concentration to 400 ppm in 2013. As startling as this statistic sounds, there are still people out there who refuse to believe humans can cause global climate change.
How is humanity going to dig itself out of this one? Is there a way to efficiently obtain energy without leaking CO2 everywhere?
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” –Albert Einstein
The solutions are right under our noses
Nature is a great place to start looking for answers. Digging underground for those answers has been a failure, so that’s now out of the equation. Where can we look next?
We need to start looking at the energy world through the lenses of nature. Advances in modern technology promise for “bio inspired energy” to “create more efficient energy production, energy storage, and energy delivery with innovations that replicate the designs of natural systems.” Bio inspired energy basically means to mimic and harness the natural, renewable energy all around us. These renewable energies include wind, solar, tidal, waves, and geothermal—all are sustainable sources of power and will be great first steps toward making use of what is endlessly available in nature.
What brings us warmth, light, food, and has been considered a God by many ancient cultures? The Sun, that massive glowing star sitting in the sky everyday, is a major player in the renewable energies world. We have been harnessing energy from this fireball for a while now, but only recently have we started to become efficient at it.
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants are currently the most advanced and efficient form of generating solar energy on a massive scale. “CSP’s could potentially generate enough clean, renewable energy to power the entire US, based on the assumption that two commodities are available in abundance; land and sunlight.” Current designs for the placement of mirrors that capture sunlight at these plants prove to be relatively inefficient—there’s a high amount of shadowing throughout the day where no light is harnessed. What can we observe—and mimic—in nature that has already mastered a light-capturing design?
Researchers at MIT have recently created a design that “reduces the amount of land required to build the plant by 20%, whilst increasing the amount of sunlight the mirrors can collect, and therefore the power generation potential.” What inspired this highly efficient method?
The petals of a sunflower gave these scientists the answers they were looking for. The sunflower’s petals are arranged in a spiral pattern known as a Fermat spiral, a design that is repeatedly found throughout nature. The special angle of 137 degrees that each petal is situated reduces the shading they cast on each other, increasing total sunlight reflection.
The sunflower is a perfect example of how nature has already laid out the design plans for energy efficiency. However, just copying the architectural layout of nature’s plants isn’t going to get us very far. What else can we copy—this time at micro level—to get the best results?
Photosynthesis is nature’s method for processing sunlight into fuel. Everywhere around us, trees, plants, flowers, and algae are taking light and converting it into energy. What happens when humans mimic this natural energy gathering system? We strive to make it even more efficient.
A few scientists at MIT have created a new silicon coated device that uses energy captured from light to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can be stored and used to generate electricity. This is considered a form of artificial photosynthesis.
In order to compete with natural gas, this solar method for obtaining hydrogen would have to be between 12 and 25 percent efficient. Fortunately, scientists at Stanford University have recently improved these silicon coated devices by covering them “with a protective layer of nickel just two-billionths of a meter thick.” This layer protects the solar cell material (silicon) from eroding quickly. These advancements are inspiring, however, before this type of hydrogen production can go commercial, it will need to be fully economical—meaning a system that could run for at least five years without deteriorating.
If we focused heavily on solar energy alone, and not only mimicked, but improved natures architectural designs and chemical processes (photosynthesis), it would help mitigate climate change and extreme weather due to the amount of CO2 built up. However, there’s no need to focus solely on energy from the Sun. What about wind energy? Has nature already created designs that would help us gather wind power more efficiently?
One of the most unique examples of biomimicry has to be the humpback whale-inspired wind turbines. A humpback whale’s fins are lined with a series of bumps called “turbercles.” These bumps let the massive whales make sharp turns in the water and allow for better maneuverability.
Professor Frank Fish at West Chester University has recently figured out that these tubercles would be perfect to attach on wind turbines located in areas with low wind speeds. After conducting an experiment using mock whale fins—one with and one without tubercles—he found that the tubercles added a performance improvement of nearly 40%.
WhalePower Corp. (appropriately named), who licensed using tubercles in airflow applications, has concluded that tubercle-enhanced wind turbines operate more effectively at moderate wind speeds, with stalling at the tip also being virtually eliminated.
Who would have ever thought the rugged-looking bumps on a whale could provide a practical solution to something so important?
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” –Albert Einstein