The hunt for fossil fuel alternatives goes on

THE quest for alternatives to fossil fuels goes on. This is driven by a number of factors. Clean biofuels are regarded as more environmentally friendly even though the more astute claim they are no more than environmentally neutral at best.

That’s an argument for another day however.

The equally pressing point, which cannot be ignored is that we are running out of the fossil fuels that have driven our global economy and heated our homes for centuries.

One third of all traded energy comes from oil while 90% of transport is reliant on it for power.

It is also critical in agriculture while significant amounts of our electricity is reliant on oil and gas.

In that context the search for alternatives to fossil fuels has been gathering pace.

Soon NTR, which is one of the pioneers in Ireland of the biofuel alternative, will publish results and do not be surprised if the figures from the group will be undermined by heavy investment costs.

For NTR and others, the goal in the final analysis is profit, but there is a cost and indeed a risk in getting those profits banked.

Most important is the fact that the environment may benefit and the economy will not be left stranded when the oil runs out if the alternatives are good enough.

In that sense the exploits of another Irish group called Steorn are quite interesting.

On January 11, Steorn announced that its “free energy technology” would be made widely available to the development community once independent scientific validation of its process finalised.

Steorn said that its intellectual property would be made available concurrently to all interested parties, from individual enthusiasts to larger research organisations.

Steorn is taking this bold move to accelerate the deployment and acceptance of its technology for both humanitarian and commercial products.

The cynics say if it sounds too good to be true it probably is, but who knows? Its technology is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy, or so it is claimed.

Critics point out that the claim violates the laws of thermodynamics, which form the basis for modern physics.

Following the placement of an ad in The Economist in August last year — to attract leading scientists working in the field of experimental physics — the group said it had the scientists now in situ, who have been charged with the testing of the technology prior to publishing their results.

Speaking in January Steorn chief executive Sean McCarthy said: “We have experienced enormous levels of interest in our free energy technology from the product development community.”

Steorn believes it has found a way that allows it to tap into “free energy” with massive implications for the rest of humanity. Time will tell.

However, the Steorn project is another reminder that the search for alternative energy sources continues and that biofuels, which have huge implications for the cost of food stuffs in the long term may not be as elegant a solution as many perceive them to be.

In that context it will be interesting to hear what Jim Barry has to say about developments in the US, where NTR is heavily committed to building biofuel plants in a joint venture programme with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.

Researchers in the US have come up with the possibility of making a new fuel from fruit sugars.

This is said to produce 40% more energy and therefore much more efficient than other means of ethanol production.

It seems this story is only warming up.