Letter: The sun’s power is free and abundant

By Letter to the Editor on November 5, 2021.

In response to Cash Moore’s Oct. 21 column, “It’s time to end nuclear paranoia.”

Dear editor,

Proponents of nuclear energy overlook the obvious, limitless supply of nuclear energy Earth has, and has had during its 4.6 billion years. I speak of the sun, which is not the nuclear fission reaction Mr. Moore wants us to use, but, is a fusion reaction. Nuclear physicists can’t re-create a fusion reaction, but doing so to obtain energy is not necessary. The sun radiates energy equal to 4 million billion billion 100-watt light bulbs every second! Our challenge is not in building more nuclear fission reactors, which are deadly, but in storing the Sun’s power.

Much greater minds than mine are working on various types of energy storage. Among them, for me, the most intriguing is the using of excess solar photoelectric power production to split water, by electrolysis, into its constituent two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. You might remember the high school chemistry electrolysis experiment in which students use electricity to split water into gaseous oxygen and hydrogen.

The hydrogen can be stored and used in ways roughly similar to storage and use of natural gas. We are good at dealing with natural gas, and we have the infrastructure in place, e.g., pipelines, compressor stations, and piping to nearly every building. With some adaptations, motor vehicles and furnaces can burn hydrogen and the only emission will be water. In other words, energy from the sun, collected as electricity and converted into and stored as hydrogen, can be used with no emissions of greenhouse gases. It can be cleanly burned to make steam to drive turbines, to generate electricity when the Sun is not shining, thus stabilizing the supply of electric power.

Forget nuclear fission reactors, with their massive costs, lethal potential for failure and potentially weaponizable by-products retaining deadly radioactivity for millions of years. The sun’s power is free, abundant and safe. All we need to do is collect it, store it and use it.

Gregory R. Côté

Irvine

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