Finding New Ways to Fill the Fuel Tank

尋找新能源 小公司上場

By Matthew L. Wald

WASHINGTON – How will the world meet its rising demand for energy? Experience suggests the solutions might already be at hand, although it may be years before they are widely recognized because energy inventions have an exceptionally long gestation period.
人類該如何滿足對能源有增無減的需求？經驗告訴我們，解決之道可能近在眼前，只不過可能要到多年之後才會廣獲認定，因為發明能源的孕育期極為漫長。

Take hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as it is more commonly known. In the last three years, this technique of horizontal drilling for gas in shale rock has shaken up the energy world by pushing natural gas prices so low that they have depressed the use of coal and the price of electricity, and even raised the prospect of creating a major new export commodity for the United States.
且以水力裂解技術為例。過去三年來，這種在頁岩水平鑽採天然氣的技術在能源產業界引起震撼，因為它導致天然氣價格大跌、煤炭的消耗量銳減、電價下跌。美國甚至可能因此而增加一種主要的出口商品。

The research began in the 1980s, at the Energy Department. But the technique did not have an impact on the gas market until nearly 20 years later.
美國聯邦能源部1980年代展開這項研究。然而這種技術並未對天然氣市場產生衝擊，直到將近20年之後才改觀。

Energy projects are capital-intensive and energy companies are conservative, especially about innovation in high-ticket hardware. Jim Ferland, president and chief executive of Westinghouse Electric, pointed out that design work on the company’s new AP1000 reactor, only now being built in China, had been done in the early 1990s.
由於能源開發計畫必須動用可觀的資金，能源公司的心態大多相當保守，尤其是牽涉到研發昂貴的硬體設備時。西屋電氣總裁兼執行長費爾蘭德指出，該公司最近開始在中國大陸組建的新式AP1000型核反應爐，設計工作早在1990年代初即已完成。

Other promising ideas are out there, in the labs, in the startups, in the heads of audacious engineers, that could well define the energy map of the 2030s.
其他大有可為的構想所在多有，在實驗室裡，在新創公司裡，在進取心強烈的工程師腦袋裡。這些構想很可能會決定2030年代能源生產及分配使用的大勢。

An obvious prospect is biofuel. Dozens of companies are toiling to find the secret of how to convert plants to liquid fuel, without doing it as Mother Nature does, putting them under heat and pressure for millions of years.
生質燃料顯然是開發重點之一。數十家公司正全力研究如何把植物化為液態燃料，不必像大自然那樣，把它們置於熱與壓力下千百萬年。

DuPont Industrial Biosciences says it has developed a “saccharification enzyme” that frees sugars so they can be digested by a bacterium that excretes alcohol, at a rate of 240 to 270 liters per metric ton using only mild temperatures, pressures and chemical conditions.
杜邦工業應用生物科技事業部表示，已經研發出一種「糖化酵素」，可使糖分釋出以供一種細菌消化，每公噸可產生240到270公升的酒精，而且可以在溫和的溫度、壓力及多項化學條件之下進行。

In Massachusetts, a tiny startup called Agrivida is inserting new genes into a variety of plants, looking for one that will, when exposed to high temperature and alkalinity, produce an enzyme that partly digests the cellulose to liberate the sugars, so they can be converted into useful chemicals.
麻州的小型新創公司Agrivida把新基因植入各種植物之後，觀察哪些植物一旦接觸高溫與鹼分，就會產生一種可以局部消化纖維質，進而釋出糖分的酵素。如此一來，它就可以轉化為具有實際用途的化學物。

Energy may be transitioning as information technology did, into innovation by small shops. “It opens up the field to the same kind of garage approaches that took hold in I.T. when it stopped being I.B.M. that did every new advance,” said Devin J. Fidler, a research manager at the Institute for the Future, in Palo Alto, California.
能源業可能正追隨資訊科技業的腳步，逐漸轉化為由小公司主導各種創新發明的局面。加州帕羅奧圖「未來研究所」研究經理費德勒指出：「它為相同的車庫研發當道模式開啟了大門，也就是不再由IBM公司領導一切創新。」

And just as the most important electronic developments of the last few years are devices that fit in a briefcase or a pocket, “there will be less of the big bang, like, ‘we’re opening a whole nuclear power plant,’ and more a lightweight innovation,” Dr. Fidler predicted.
費德勒預言，一如這幾年來最重要的電子研發成果全是可以放進手提箱甚至口袋的裝置，「類似『我們已經開啟一座核電廠』的大爆炸會更少，輕巧的創新發明則會更多」。

That is not to discount large-scale institutions. At the University of Wyoming, Mark A. Northam, director of the School of Energy Resources, is working with the Idaho National Laboratory to develop a refinery that would turn coal into liquids, which could substitute for oil.
大型機構的重要性不會因此打折。懷俄明大學能源資源學院院長諾桑正與愛達荷國家實驗室合作，共同設計一種可以使煤液化以取代石油的提煉廠。

In a few years, the system would add equipment to break up water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and add the hydrogen to the hydrocarbons from the coal to improve the value of the product.
預計幾年後，這套系統就會增添一些設備，把水分子分解成氫與氧，再以氫結合來自煤炭的碳氫化合物，以提高產品的價值。

The electricity needed to split the water molecules could come from a wind farm, using an abundant Wyoming resource. Modular nuclear reactors could also be used to make electricity, and the heat they make, either before or after they have been used to make electricity, could be used to do work at the refinery.
分解這些分子所需的電可能來自一處風力發電場，充分利用懷俄明州充沛的風力資源。模組化的核子反應爐也可以生產電力，發電前後產生的熱可供提煉廠使用。

The product could run cars, heat homes and provide feed-stocks for chemical plants.
這種產品可用於驅動汽車、為家戶提供暖氣，也可以為化學廠提供原料。

“It’s probably 50 years out,” said Mr. Northam.
諾桑說：「大概要到50年以後。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/business/energy-environment/for-energy-innovation-a-long-development-period.html

2012-04-24聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 陳世欽譯 原文參見紐時週報十版右