The original note, as written at the time
What if we could manage carbon based energy by learning from nature? Instead of burning carbon in huge unmanageable and inefficient bunches, why don’t we “cellulise” the carbon? This would involve breaking the carbon down into microscopic manageable chunks which can be ignited independently. The discrete energy can be focused to force electrons out of the flame into a circuit, or the flame’s heat could be used to drive electrons.
Ongoing development
Managing carbon-based energy by learning from nature: instead of burning carbon in huge, unmanageable, inefficient bunches, cellulise it — break it down into microscopic, manageable chunks that can be ignited independently. The discrete energy can then be focused to force electrons out of the flame into a circuit, or the heat can drive a generator.
The critique underneath is correct and it rarely gets said: the problem with combustion is not carbon, it is scale. A large fire is a chaotic event with a thin band of useful temperature and a great deal of waste heat going up a chimney. Biology never burns in bulk. It releases energy in small, controlled, local steps at the temperature the work requires.
Cellulising is the engineering version of that. Many small flames, each small enough to be managed, each close to the thing that needs the heat. The distribution is the efficiency: you do not lose heat in a flue if the flame is where the process is.
The thermoelectrics are the weak link and should be admitted. Turning a flame into electrons directly is inefficient at small scale, and a thousand small generators have a thousand small losses. The better route is probably heat where it is needed rather than electricity, with the electricity made once at larger scale.
The real prize is the fuel itself. A cellulised fuel can be made from waste, grown, and stored at ambient pressure — which is a different energy system from one that depends on extraction and refining.
Small fires, close to the work, made from what is already here. That is the shape of an energy system that a village can run.