by Hugh M. Lewis

One of our main aims is the implementation of an alternative energy infrastructure based upon a broad spectrum of widely deployed solar and hydrogen based systems. All other developmental issues, aside from human and socio-centric factors, are derived ultimately from providing this alternative infra-structural framework. The reasons for doing so, and for doing so as soon as possible, are obvious to everyone by now, whether we want to admit it or not. Global warming, induced by over-dependency of fossil-fuels and carbon energy infrastructures, is basically upsetting the balance of nature on a global scale, and with what can be seen in terms of geological or even biological time, as having sudden, catastrophic consequences for all life on earth, including, and especially the human species. It is something to think about next time you get in your car.

Solar based systems include, but are not limited to, solar heating and electrical power generation, either from the use of coordinate, concentrated heliostats on a central target for steam power generation, or through the extensive use of photo-voltaic batteries charged by the use of solar panels. We may include in this basic indirect forms of solar power including wind-turbines, tidal power generators, wave-generator designs, systems exploiting thermal differentials in large bodies of water, and hydroelectric designs, the latter being one of the most extensively deployed form of non-fossil fuel power generation currently deployed by humankind. I would add as well the use of solar ponds in closed Rankin cycle systems, as well as other possible novel applications of solar-based power generating systems.

Hydrogen based systems include a cycle of energy production in the form of hydrogen gas, or some related form of hydrogen based fuel (Borax for one, alternatively, hydrogen peroxide) and its storage and controlled utilization in power generation, including in vehicles of all kinds, sizes and shapes, and in home and industrial applications. We may consider the use of hydrogen in cost-effective fuel cells, the direct application of hydrogen gas to turbine or rocket engines, the use of hydrogen to generate steam used to power turbines for power generation, or the use of ionized hydrogen plasma in upscale, advanced space-craft configurations. The cycle becomes completed with the combustion of hydrogen with oxygen and the creation of water which, when condensed, can be collected and returned to the system at multiple points, either for renewed hydrogen production, for cooling or heat transfer purposes, or for steam regeneration.

In the development of an integrated solar-hydrogen platform, I do not see exclusive reliance on any single type or modality of energy production, but I can envision mixed and variously integrated hybrid systems, that are fully deployed and distributed in a local, non-centralized manner, all systems feeding a common, scale-free energy grid that is global in size.

It is of course far easier to talk about these configurations, and to draw them on paper, than it is to actually create such an integrated system in the real world, on a human-sized and earth-sized scale. The scalability of such platforms from local to regional to global configurations remains an unaddressed and unasked question. There remain unresolved issues of hydrogen production, storage, and controlled combustion in various engine designs, as well as the cost-effectiveness and relative efficiency/productivity of many related technologies. 

We are starting with a very simple set of designs and experiments, designs utilizing photo-voltaic cells, wind turbines, and hydrogen production facilities, and extending the meta-systems design framework from there in multiple directions. We do so at this stage as much for providing an educational demonstration model of an alternative energy meta-systems framework, as for design and research development purposes. Our aim is to create a fairly unique and consolidated domestic-based platform, sufficient for home-energy needs, and to replicate and diversify this model to fit a variety of alternative domestic configurations. We will then diversify this model to larger scale production networks, and to the development of hydrogen-fuel based propulsion and drive systems that would be compatible with such energy production networks.

General Systems Essays, Vol. I