Expert guessers think the world’s oil supply is on the decline, and with more than 6 billion people competing for resources, is it time to think about spending less for gasoline? Beyond a resounding “Yes!” some people will go to any length looking for energy.

100-mpg Three-Wheeler Encloses Two Travelers
Did the US$3+ per gallon cost for a gallon of gas make you feel grim? If you already drive a compact car, the high prices for hybrid cars with only slightly better mileage seem ridiculous when you look at all the numbers. So some entrepreneurs have mated the high mileage associated with motorcycles with the comfort of a small car.

Three-wheel vehicles aren’t new — but safe, fast and comfortable tricycles are entering the fray.

The VentureOne, for instance, can achieve 100 mpg with a top speed of over 100 mph. Acceleration: 0 to 60 mph in six seconds. It looks like a closed-in motorcycle but includes heating, air conditioning, a stereo, airbag protection, steel roll bar, bumpers and tilt system to prevent tipping over around curves.

Ian Bruce and VentureOne cofounder Howard Levine incorporated the 45-degree tilting system from Dutch company Carver Engineering. “Most people dressed in a suit wouldn’t be willing to attend a meeting after arriving on a motorcycle, but they’d willingly ride to their destination in a VentureOne,” they said at the UK’s Daily Mail.

For drivers feeling an inclination to break away from gasoline altogether, a Silence PT2 may meet their needs. This three-wheeler can reach high speeds of up to 125 mph on a single charge. However, the vehicle lacks doors and costs about US$42,000, Engadget recently pointed out.

Super-Skinny Solar Cells
The cost of producing solar panels could drop by more than 60 percent, thanks to technology being developed by Australian researchers. Professor Andrew Blakers, director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at the Australian National University, has said that “sliver technology” could slice the price of solar power to below the current Australian retail price of electricity.

Blakers invented the technology with colleague Dr. Klaus Weber in Australia.

By taking a 1-millimeter-thick solar panel and cutting it into 120-micrometer-thick slices, you get 8-1/3 times the area of the 1 mm panel. “This technique allows researcher to use much smaller amounts of expensive silicon to generate the same amount of electricity,” noted Stephen Pincock at ABC Science.

“The sliver technology is also efficient at converting sunlight to electricity,” according to Professor Blakers of the Australian National University. “In 2006, the researchers achieved efficiencies over 20 percent, making it the world’s most efficient commercial thin-film solar cell.”

Let Mother Nature Warm You
The heat you seek may be far below you, but once you tap it, it’s yours for years. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology panel report has noted that “large areas of the U.S. are suitable for geothermal exploitation in the near term that have not been considered in the past.”

The Christian Science Monitor reported:

Geothermal plants could supply about 100,000 megawatts – the equivalent of 200 big coal-burning power plants – by 2050, according to the report. That power could help replace the 50,000 megawatts of coal-fired power and 40,000 megawatts of nuclear power that the U.S. is expected to lose over the next 25 years as it closes old power plants.

That’s the promise of “enhanced geothermal systems,” or EGS, according to the MIT report. If new drilling techniques were developed, geothermal power could produce 10 percent of U.S. electricity by 2050, according to Mark Clayton’s article.

Tapping this source requires drilling down one to six miles into solid rock (as opposed to soft rock associated with oil drilling). The drilling cost may be about $15 million to create a well that would allow for a pipe to inject water to hot rock crevices and a second pipe to extract steamy hot water.

Corncobs More Valuable Than Previously Thought
Before toilet paper was invented, some Midwesterners used corncobs. After that era, cobs were just one more fiber to use as cropland topsoil compost or for burning. Now researchers have found that cobs are perfect for storing natural gas.

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU) and Midwest Research Institute use corncobs to make briquettes. They can store 180 times their volume at one-seventh the pressure of conventional natural gas tanks. Methane, an abundant fuel that’s domestically made, burns more cleanly than gasoline.

Peter Pfeifer, principal project leader of MU, said, “We are very exited about this breakthrough because it may lead to a flat and compact tank that would fit under the floor of a passenger car,” according to a post at the Science Blog.

Not just theoretical thinking, this technology is powering a test pickup truck that has been in use since last fall. Researchers are monitoring truck performance, from mileage data to briquette stability. The Research has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

Hydrogen Energy Advocates Move Ahead to Manufacturing
The U.S. Dept. of Energy and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy have partnered in a cross-industry collaborative program targeting the creation of manufacturing technologies for affordable hydrogen-powered energy systems.

Three projects have shown potential to speed the use of hydrogen fuel cells (via National Center for Manufacturing Sciences):

• Manufacturable chemical hydride fuel system storage for hydrogen fuel systems. Manufacturing initial pilot runs were successfully completed and the cartridges are being evaluated.
• Using newly produced parts, performance tests on polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell components will be conducted this spring. The effort has the potential to reduce the costs of hydrogen fuel cell components by two orders or magnitude, according to the report at NCMS.
• By applying design-for-manufacturability principles, fuel cell stack (for portable applications) architecture was optimized and manufacturability was shown using a new single-step production process.

Surface-Swimming Sea Snake for Energy
Looking at renewable energy sources, we see a little coming from wind power, some from biofuels, a tad from solar panels, a little from water power, but none from wave power. Yet, Portugal will soon begin tapping this source.

Sean O’Neill, president of Scottish firm Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, said, “The total potential of the coast of the United States is 252 million megawatt hours a year,” according to BBC News. “That’s about 6.5 percent of our total capacity in the U.S., equal to all the power from dams that we have in the U.S. right now.”

Ocean Power Delivery has positioned a prototype wave-power system called Pelamis off the coast of Scotland. “Pelamis is actually the name of a surface swimming sea snake, which is quite an apt description for the machine when you see how it moves,” Max Carcas, who runs business development for the Scottish firm Ocean Power Delivery, told BBC.

The prototype design of these train-like tubes relies on cylindrical barrels with 3.5 m (about 11.5 feet) in diameter and 120 m (about 400 feet) to 150 m (about 500 feet) long. Picture this divided into four and, at the three division points, hinges between sections move against each due to wave motion. Hydraulic rams at these hinges drive generators to produce electricity, which is carried through sub-sea cables to the coastal population. Special patented anchors keep the waves from pushing the semi-submerged cylinders from washing ashore. Typically, the company recommends positioning the cylinders 5 to 10 km from shore. The long axis of the cylinders remains perpendicular to the wave crests. Each unit of four segments (three hinges) generates 750 kW.

Together, the hinged “snake” will be 140 m (460 ft) long.

The firm has already deployed a prototype system around the Orkneys off the coast of Scotland. The company is in the process of building a fully operational system for Portugal, anticipating that this system will be online sometime this spring.

No Limits
Just when you thought you’d heard it all, there’s one more recycling and energy source story. With the title “Battery Passes Urine Test, Running 90 Minutes on Pee,” you know you’re in for a weird Gizmodo tale.

The blog post stated that “a Pee Battery uses the ions in human urine to keep 1.5 volts streaming for 90 minutes. And its makers say it can be tweaked to last even longer.”

Well, I don’t want to pass along the rest because it reminds of the old meat packer comment, “We use everything except the squeal.” Yet I do wonder what’s so special about the music they’re listening to that they resort to recycling urine. Anyhow, how might this affect the workers at American Standard and Kohler? Or, perhaps when the lights get dim, would I prefer power from nuclear fission or urine?