Living organisms consume food (as fuel) and carry on with the various tasks of living. Each living creature is a consumer and creator of bioenergy. Plant and animal bioenergetics is being looked at very seriously as a potentially limitless source of power for virtually every conceivable use. The difference between input (food) and output (work) is the magical key.
The issues surrounding its inevitable development and deployment include:
1) Obtaining it efficiently;
2) Transporting (or 'conducting') it efficiently;
3) Storing it for future use with a minimal loss or decay factor;
4) Converting it from one form to another as may be required in the circumstances;
5) Multiplying its efficiency in terms of input versus output, and perpetuating the production cycle.
Regarding this latter issue, picture the example of trying to get a hamster to cycle a wheel to the greatest number of revolutions per minute while feeding it the least expensive source of nutrition.
If you combine living creatures which are highly energetic little machines (such as microbes or even viruses) which consume waste products or pollutants for the purpose harnessing a source of energy, several perplexing problems facing us in the present and in the future could theoretically be solved (or at least mitigated) simultaneously.
The utopian picture of bioenergetics would be harnessing energetic output to produce electricity from a species of microbes which consumes oil spills and excretes (as a byproduct of the energy production process) harmless waste products that are readily biodegradable, or perhaps even useful.
I strongly believe that enterprises which invest in bioenergetics in any aspect will begin to make an appearance late in 2012 (principally as academically-sponsored start-ups and ventures), and will be very valuable in terms of profit potential and stock pricing potential by the third quarter of 2015.
The following article excerpt comes to us courtesy of SmartPlanet:
Using everyday microbes to power electrical devices
A grad student is improving technology that creates electrical fuel cells from everyday microbes like yeast. Read the full story
This field is fashionably green, ecologically unassailable, and addresses an almost unimaginably enormous demand while simultaneously solving some very serious problems. It has the ancillary sociological benefit of bringing together a merger of interests between naturalists and preservationists with the lust for innovation and profits of entrepreneurs and capital providers. Perhaps some venture capitalists, accredited angel investors and crowdfunding organizers are listening.
I would certainly hope so.
Douglas E. Castle for The Global Futurist
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