Better Catalysts, Better BioDiesel from Jatropha

Conventional bio-diesels suffer from poor cold weather performance. Better means of converting unsaturated vegetable oil triglycerides to straight chain alkanes (without glycerine and without double bonds). Jatropha oil is seen as having potential for high oil yield, with minimal environmental disruption.

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have devised rhenium-modified catalysts that significantly increase the yield of diesel-type alkanes (C15-C18) from the hydrotreatment of jatropha oil under conditions of higher jatropha-to-catalyst weight ratios. A paper on their work was published online 10 March in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels.....

... Pt-Re-based catalysts are known to be effective for naptha reforming and other processes. At 20 wt % Re, the conversion into hydrocarbons was found to be constant at ~80% at any jat/cat ratio employed, with high selectivity for C18. They also found that Pd-modified Re/H-ZSM-5 catalysts are excellent candidates for triglyceride conversion as well.

Rhenium-modified Pt/H-ZSM-5 catalysts were found to be much more effective for hydrotreating jatropha oil even at a high jat/cat ratio of 10, and 80% conversion and 70% C18 selectivity were achieved. The reaction pathway involves hydrogenation of the C=C bonds of the these triglycerides followed by mainly C15-C18 alkane production through hydrodeoxygenation with decarbonylation and decarboxylation. _GCC

Renewable green diesel-type alkanes can be produced by hydrotreating jatropha oil and vegetable oils at standard hydrotreating conditions (i.e., 543−573 K) with Pt/H-ZSM-5 catalysts, which are active under the weight ratio of jatropha or vegetable oil/catalyst of 1. The carbon molar yield of straight chain C15−C18 alkanes was 80% for hydrotreating pure jatropha oil. However, under the jatropha oil/catalyst weight ratio of 10, being important from a practical point of view, the alkanes yield falls to only 2.3%. Under a high jatropha oil/catalyst ratio of 10, rhenium-modified Pt/H-ZSM-5 catalyst is found to be effective for raising the C15−C18 alkanes yield. The yield of C15−C18 alkanes is 67% at an optimun Re/Al molar ratio of 0.8. Investigation of catalyst natures indicates that metallic Pt and Re are independently present on the surface, but synergism of these two metals could play an important role in the hydrotreating reaction, even at a high ratio of jatropha oil/catalyst of 10. The reaction pathway involves hydrogenation of the C═C bonds of the jatropha oils followed by mainly hydrodeoxygenation with decarbonylation and decarboxylation to form C15−C18 straight chain alkane mixtures. _ACS

South and Southeast Asia can become new global energy superpowers, if palm, jatropha, pongamia, moringa, and other tropical seed oil crops live up to their potential -- and if these vegetable oils can be converted into pure hydrocarbon fuels economically.

These Asian operations will be largely administered by either Chinese or Indian companies. Other tropical regions -- such as parts of South America and Africa -- also present significant potential for production of high yield tropical oilseed crops. Chinese biofuel ventures in Africa are likely to grow more numerous, as the operations in Southeast Asia begin to become more profitable.

Advances in the refinement of bio-oil fuels, such as described in the Japanese research above, should expedite the global impact of these tropical oilseed derived fuels.

Returning to the Source:

ImageSource
Scientists can detect traces of the green algae Botyrococcus Braunii in oil and coal deposits. This green algae has been producing hydrocarbons for hundreds of millions of years, and continues to do so. So if green algae B. Braunii is still on the job, why is everyone so worried about "peak oil doom?" The time scale involved. Although oil from B. Braunii is of the highest quality, it takes the algae too long to reproduce. It takes too much time to produce oil in the quantities which humans currently consume. So what is the answer?

B. braunii is a prime candidate for biofuel production because some races of the green algae typically "accumulate hydrocarbons from to 30 percent to 40 percent of their dry weight, and are capable of obtaining hydrocarbon contents up to 86 percent of their dry weight.

...Like most green algae, B. braunii is capable of producing great amounts of hydrocarbon oils in a very small land area.

B. braunii algae show particular promise not just because of their high production of oil but also because of the type of oil they produce, Devarenne said. While many high-oil-producing algae create vegetable-type oils, the oil from B. braunii, known as botryococcenes, are similar to petroleum.

"The fuels derived from B. braunii hydrocarbons are chemically identical to gasoline, diesel and kerosene," Devarenne said. "Thus, we do not call them biodiesel or bio-gasoline; they are simply diesel and gasoline. To produce these fuels from B. braunii, the hydrocarbons are processed exactly the same as petroleum is processed and thus generates the exact same fuels. Remember, these B. braunii hydrocarbons are a main constituent of petroleum. So there is no difference other than the millions of years petroleum spent underground."

But, a shortcoming of B. braunii is its relatively slow growth rate. While the algae that produce 'vegetable-type' oils may double their growth every six to 12 hours, B. braunii's doubling rate is about four days, he said.

"Thus, getting large amounts of oil from B. braunii is more time consuming and thus more costly," Devarenne said. "So, by knowing the genome sequence we can possibly identify genes involved in cell division and manipulate them to reduce the doubling rate." _SD

Humans can intentionally grow large volumes of B. Braunii across dry and desert lands -- even over the surface of oceans and seas. But unless a good genetic tweak can be found to speed up the algae's reproductive and oil production cycle, it would be very expensive to do so.

Billions of dollars are going to research to develop such tweaks. Microbial fuels should arrive on the scene within ten years -- just enough to nudge fuel markets a tiny bit. Within twenty years, microbial fuels will comprise close to 30% of the liquid and gaseous fuels markets.

Peak oil is only true in the most trivial sense -- sooner or later, humans will stop using oil because better energies and fuels will be abundantly available.

Between now and then, energy markets will see some turbulent ups and downs. But the end game is in sight, which means that a price ceiling on liquid fuels is visibly descending. Slowly, distantly, but visibly. Adjust your plans accordingly.

Using Cellulose You Can Make Almost Anything

A research team at the University of Wisconsin Madison have developed a process to hydrolyse cellulose into sugars for further processing of waste cellulose into fuels, chemicals, plastics, etc. Butanol is the prime alcohol fuel -- much better than ethanol -- and butanol can be fermented from cellulosic component sugars with the proper microbes.  

In an open-access paper published in the 9 March issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report that the process leads to a nearly 90% yield of glucose from cellulose and 70-80% yield of sugars from untreated corn stover.

Dr. Ronald Raines, a UW-Madison professor of biochemistry and chemistry, and graduate student Joseph Binder say that the new process generates easily recovered sugars that are “superb feedstocks” for microbial growth and biocatalytic ethanol production. _GCC

Another UW-Madison breakthrough that converts cellulose to jet fuel and other hydrocarbons

Second generation biofuels to grow 50% per year for next 5 years. After that, the sky is the limit.

Cellulosic ethanol arriving on the world stage

Ethanol beginning to reduce demand for crude oil -- "peak demand" on the way

Gribble worm to help boost cellulosic biofuels industry?

Cellulosic fuels, chemicals, plastics, animal feed, etc. is just the beginning of humans finding profitable uses for waste, garbage, and other throwaway leftovers of a mid-level civilisation.  Higher level civilisations will reduce waste, and make profitable use of the waste they do create.

The only way to avoid the great human dieoff that leftist greens are engineering for us, is to kick up our technology so that the parasitic greens have no excuse to ride us into the ground -- as they are doing under the Obama - Pelosi reich.

Costs of Energy Generation -- Solar, Wind Blow

ImageSource

Always be skeptical of any graph you see.  The IER graph above, for example,  claims that wind costs only about $2000 per kw installed.   A more common estimate would be closer to $5000 (perhaps more when total subsidies are accounted for).  But since wind only provides power 30% of the time, you need to multiply the figure by 3.  But since wind does not provide power reliably or predictably, you have to back up all wind farms with expensive gas turbines.  Tack on the cost of backup and fuel supply.  And since the wind only blows in certain places -- where power substations and transmission lines are not likely to be handy -- tack on the expense of new power conversion and transmission infrastructure.  And since expensive wind turbine gearboxes break down every 5 to ten years, and cost several million $ to replace, tack on that cost.  And since wind turbines only last about 20 years -- compared to over 60 years for a nuclear power plant -- add the cost of frequent replacement.  And so on . . . .

Solar power costs even more than wind to install, and has many of the same infrastructure and reliability issues as wind.  Photovoltaics have fewer mechanical parts to break down, so will probably last longer than wind turbines -- although they lose efficiency with every year of use.

The above graph looks at power cost per kwh generated in British pence. This is a different measure of energy costs than the top graph showing cost per kw installed.

This graph reveals that in terms of operating costs, nuclear power beats all others. So if the government could get off its fat arse and make the legal and regulatory environments more friendly for nuclear, the industrial and economic picture of the planet could start looking up fairly quickly.

This is the IER's levelised look at generating cost per megawatt hour in 2008 US dollars for various forms of power. Levelised costs purportedly adjust for intermittency, cost of backup, fuel costs, carbon costs, etc etc.

Again, the IER has significantly underestimated the operating costs of both onshore and offshore wind. For offshore wind -- in a highly corrosive marine environment -- replacement costs would approach twice the already exorbitant costs for onshore wind.

Wind farm ventures exist to take advantage of government subsidies, carbon hysteria, and tax breaks. Once these government giveaways and hysterias run their course, wind infrastructure will be left out in the rain and cold to corrode away to nothing. Solar ventures, unfortunately, are only marginally better in that regard.

More very useful information here

Coal Gasification Makes Clean Use of Dirty Coal

There is a clean way to use cheap dirty coal.  It's called IGCC -- integrated gasification combined cycle.  By turning coal into syngas (hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane etc) you are able to separate the pollutants from the energy, and cleanly dispose of the sulfur, mercury, etc.  By implementing CHP -- combined heat and power -- you can raise total efficiencies close to 90%.   Gasification of coal is becoming more popular worldwide.  The same type of gasification plants can be used for both cheap coal and biomass.

Coal can also be gasified in situ, as an alternative to mining the coal and gasifying in a special plant.  In situ gasification of coal is still being perfected, but it may be far less disruptive to ecosystems than traditional methods of coal mining and utilisation.

Plasma gasification is an interesting approach to producing energy from carbon sources -- including garbage and waste.  Plasma gasification can break materials down to their component atoms -- rendering even highly toxic and infectious biowaste harmless.

Solar gasification of biomass, coal, waste, or any carbon source, is another variation on the gasification theme which may find a profitable economic niche.

Low-tech gasification is coming to individual homeowners -- allowing them to heat and eventually power their homes via the near-complete combustion of wood and other carbon sources.

The long term future of bioenergy will depend upon microbes and advanced bioreactors.  Microbe bioreactors are intrinsically more efficient at extracting non-heat energy due to the catalytic nature of bioreactors.

Comparing Costs for Energy, and More Energy News

NextBigFuture

Brian Wang looks at a study of the comparative costs of different forms of power production for the UK. Offshore wind is particularly bad. It is not clear whether the authors of the report took into account the lifetime of the different power plants. Wind turbines are particularly bad about requiring costly replacements and maintenance, and having to be retired early due to exposure to the elements.

Brian Westenhaus looks at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and its shocking inability to certify even one new nuclear plant design over the past 35 years.

US NRC looks at small modular designs -- and takes its own sweet time about it.

Competition for Next Gen Nuclear Plant

Using solar energy for biomass gasification

Co-firing biomass with coal becoming more common in US

Co-firing eucalyptus and coal in NSW Australia


Biomass power from sawmill residue in British Columbia, Canada

There is no single energy answer. Bioenergy is extremely important due to the ability to grow biomass over most of the Earth's surface -- both land and ocean. This ubiquitous nature of biological growth will allow localities and regions to have more control over essential power and other economic possibilities on the small and regional scale.

Coal, oil sands, oil shale, heavy oils, and unconventional gas are extremely important bridge technologies -- between the oil age and the post-fossil age. The sooner humans get past the dieoff.org carbon hysteria of leftist greens and enter the real world of scientific proof, the sooner they can advance toward a higher level.

Nuclear fission is scalable up to very high levels of power production. It is safer than most forms of power production, but it could be much safer if the safe new designs were given the support by government that they deserve. Modular nuclear power can be distributed and made far more robust and resistant against external attempts to cut off power to large parts of a nation.

Energy News Briefs

Sorghum may become one of the top bioenergy crops.

Bioenergy companies may have to break into the market via high value chemicals production.

Advanced research in microbes and catalysts will have many parallel applications -- including the recycling of waste plastics.

A combined revolution in lighting, networking, and fire safety?

The Obama - Pelosi regime is still intent on implementing national energy starvation. The coordinated attacks by government officials on Canadian oil sands, shale gas, coal, shale oil, and oil drilling will all have the ultimate effect of making the US more dependent upon the importation of fuels from bloody dictatorships.

High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor Boost

The US DOE awarded $40 million to General Atomics and Westinghouse for conceptual designs of High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors (HTGR) to be completed by August 2011. These next generation designs will be safer, more economical, more efficient, and have a wider range of uses. The first economic use of HTGRs may be to provide "process heat" for the extraction and refining of oil and unconventional fossil fuels.

The process heat niche takes some of the competitive pressure off NGNP since the two LWR designs most likely to get to market in the next five-to-ten years are targeting electricity generation. The size of the NGNP suggests it would not be suited for off-the-grid applications since it would be difficult to transport its components to such sites. This leaves large petro-chemical plants that have both the water access for barges and the need for 600 MW (thermal) of process heat.

The best case scenario for payback to process heat customers for a commercial version of the reactor looks like this. Assume a member of the NGNP Alliance burns 1 million barrels of oil/day at $70/barrel. That's a daily cost of $70 million. Every 30 days it burns $2.1 billion in crude oil for process heat and over 300 days it burns $21 billion.

If a new 300 MW high temperature gas-cooled reactor costs $3,500/Kw, or $1.05 billion, the payback occurs in the first or second year assuming all the oil used for process heat is eventually swapped out for heat from the reactor. The actual payback will be much longer due to the need to amortize R&D, NRC licensing, and start-up costs, which could be an additional $3 billion. Also, the plant would have to reconfigure steam lines and control systems to deliver heat from reactor instead of fossil fueled boilers. _EnergyCollective

It will require a different psychology to see nuclear reactors as "heat generators" more than "power generators", but then heat has always been the primary product of commercial fission reactors.

Western civilisation needs 20 to 30 more years of high quantity production of fossil fuels. If nuclear reactors can facilitate that production, they will have done a significant part in transitioning to a cleaner energy future.

Nippon Oil's Algae to Jet Fuel 5 Year Plan

Nippon Oil is collaborating with Hitachi Plant Technologies to invest in Euglena Co. The plan is to develop a viable commercial technology for large scale production of jet fuel from euglena algae -- within 5 years.

Euglena Co. is currently focused on the growth the algae for application in the food and nutraceutical markets. The partners reportedly plan to build a test plant to culture euglena and extract oil from them to produce fuel. The companies also aim to start testing the fuel with airplanes and buses.

Using Euglena’s culturing technology, the organism can be grown efficiently in pools and ponds. Area for area, the production yield of euglena far exceeds that of sugarcane, corn and other crops commonly used to produce biofuels. The three firms see this as a distinct advantage for Japan and other countries where large-scale farming is difficult. At present, Japan imports most of its automotive-use biofuels from Brazil.


Nippon Oil, Hitachi Plant and Euglena aim to lower the production cost of their euglena-based jet fuel to around 70 yen per liter [about $2.90 per gallon US] to keep the supply price not much higher than that of conventional jet fuel. _GCC

Current oil prices around $80 a barrel are sufficient to spur a widescale investment into bioenergy and biofuels by large oil, chemical, and utility companies. Each incremental rise in oil prices will trigger new investment and investigation into biological methods for producing energy and fuels.

It is true that large-scale commercialisation of hydrocarbon bio-fuels is still at least 5 years away. And yet the fact that so many large industrial firms are investing so much in bioenergy cannot help but worry the oil dictatorships of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. In fact, Saudi Arabia is already preparing for "peak demand" -- the day when the market for oil will diminish steadily due to alternative fuels on the market.

BTL at Landfills, and Algae to Butanol Aquaculture

A new plasma gasification plant for turning municipal solid waste into fuels will begin construction in Oregon in a few months.

With the S4 Plasma Enhanced Melter (PEM) system, waste materials are prepared and fed into a first phase gasification chamber that operates at temperatures of approximately 1,500 °F (816 °C). After the first phase, the waste materials flow into a second closed chamber where they are superheated to temperatures between 10,000 and 20,000 °F (5,538 to 11,093 °C) using plasma. The intense heat of the second stage plasma gasifier rearranges the molecular structure of the waste, transforming organic (carbon-based) materials into synthesis gas (syngas).

The clean syngas may then be converted into transportation fuels such as ethanol and diesel, or industrial products such as hydrogen and methanol. The syngas could also be used as a substitute for natural gas for heating or electricity generation. In a secondary stage of the PEM (Plasma Enhanced Melter) process, inorganic (non-carbon-based) materials are transformed into environmentally inert products.

The new plasma gasification facility will complement the landfill site's other renewable energy production. Waste Management began generating renewable electricity at the site in January 2010 with the startup of a new landfill gas-to-energy (LFGTE) facility. The LFGTE process captures methane gas generated as waste decomposes in the landfill and then uses the gas to generate 6 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The electricity is powering 5,000 homes in Seattle through an agreement with Seattle City Light. _GCC

The landfill even has 100 MW of wind power capacity -- but capacity is not the same as production. With the wind generators sitting idle (or worse than idle) most of the time, no wonder they are turning to more reliable sources of renewable energy.

Here is an unusual algal energy project:

Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture between DuPont and BP, will be responsible for commercialization of the resulting technology package. The macroalgae-to-isobutanol project will establish technology and intellectual property leadership in the use of macroalgae as a low cost, scalable and environmentally sustainable biomass for biofuel production.

Efforts will focus on: improving domestic macroalgae aquaculture; converting macroalgae to bio-available sugars; converting those sugars to isobutanol; and economic and environmental optimization of the production process. More than 60 scientists in Wilmington, Del., and Berkeley, Calif., will work on this research and development program. The macroalgae aquafarming project will be conducted in Southern California. _BiofuelsDigest

More here

Quite a Lot of Energy Around, Actually

There is plenty of crude oil around the world. But there is far more coal, oil sands, shale gas, oil shale, heavy oils -- the unconventionals. Unconventional gas alone -- shale gas and coal bed gas -- are set to revolutionise world energy markets. Various projects to produce liquid fuels from gas are making the Russians very nervous indeed. Petrobras is even using microfluidic GTL and Fischer Tropsch for offshore production of liquid fuels from gas.

You know that oil sands are set to become a great success when the big guns of the green dieoff movement are spending big money in a propaganda campaign to shut them down. Of course, without domestic sources of energy, the advanced world will be held hostage to bloody oil dictatorships. Dieoff.org greens appear to be working hard to bring about their namesake.

Biomass to liquids (BTL) continues to advance against the disadvantage of low energy density.

This involves the drying and crushing of the biomass, torrefaction, gasification, purification of the synthesis gas and its ultimate conversion to second generation biofuels using Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.

A Polish power company is collaborating with Hitachi to build advanced nuclear power plants in Poland, and Mitsubishi may be bailing out South Africa's failed pebble bed reactor project.

The anaerobic digestion of biological waste and debris may prove to be a very useful form of energy and fertiliser in areas of active farming, ranching, and forestry. Bio - methane is produced, along with rich compost for agricultural soil.

As soon as the public understands that CO2 is not a threat to the Earth's environment in any way, we can focus on eliminating actual toxic products of industry and energy production. Freeing up the billions of dollars invested in proving the fantasy catastrophe of climate change will allow some actual productive work to get done, we hope.

Now, big wind and big solar. Neither produce baseload or dispatchable power. The capacity factor for both is below 0.3. Both are at least 3X as expensive to build as nuclear, considering the actual power produced. And nuclear plants survive at least 50 years, compared to wind turbines whose incredibly expensive gearboxes give out every 6 to 10 years.

The wasteful pursuit of big wind and big solar projects by the Obama - Pelosi regime is a sign of the ideological vacuousness of modern government, media, academia, and society at large. Both big wind and big solar are huge wastes of resources and personnel that could be better used in a more productive capacity.

Fusion : Fission Hybrid Reactor Advantages

A wide range of newer, cheaper, safer, and more reliable nuclear reactors are vying for approval and licensing with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But one approach that may be better than all the Gen IV or Gen V fission reactors is the hybrid fusion and fission reactor.

Hybrid nuclear fusion combines the two forms of nuclear power, fission and fusion, in a single reactor. This has several advantages over fission alone: it minimises the environmental impact, reduces risks, enlarges reserves of nuclear fuel and is more flexible to operate.

Fission, the process behind conventional nuclear power, harnesses energy from the radioactive decay of uranium and other fissile materials. Fusion, meanwhile, is an experimental technology that extracts energy from processes similar to those occurring inside the sun, where hydrogen atoms are fused together to form helium.

"Pure" fusion is often touted as the solution to all our energy problems, and it has undeniable advantages over fission. It produces no long-lived nuclear waste and needs no fuel other than water. But it could take another 50 years to make fusion technically and economically viable - if it can ever be made to work at all.

One problem with fusion is the size of the reactor core. To make a fusion reaction self-sustaining requires a plasma volume of about 3300 cubic metres, more than three times the proposed volume of ITER, the world's most advanced fusion project now under construction in France.

Another unsolved issue is how to construct a reactor wall, or "blanket", capable of withstanding intense bombardment from high-energy neutrons generated by the plasma. Materials that can do this do not yet exist.

Hybrid nuclear power potentially solves both these problems. First, the blanket is itself a fission reactor that burns nuclear fuels and generates neutrons. In the process it absorbs high-energy neutrons from the plasma, reducing the energy flux reaching the outer wall by a factor of 50, meaning that existing materials could be used.

Second, a hybrid reactor's plasma ball can be much smaller than in a pure fusion reactor - about the same size as ITER's, in fact - because energy generated by fission can be fed back into the plasma to keep it burning.

Hybrid reactors have other advantages too. One is that the fission reaction can burn a range of fuels, including the long-lived high-level nuclear waste produced in conventional fission reactors. It "transmutates" these waste products into isotopes that decay over a hundred years rather than tens of thousands. Not only does this eliminate some of the nuclear industry's waste problems, it also potentially helps to rid the world of plutonium and other weapons-grade materials.

Hybrid reactors also sidestep looming shortages of the high-grade uranium required to fuel conventional reactors, as they can run on non-enriched uranium and thorium. Low-grade uranium and thorium are plentiful in most parts the world. And because the fissile material produced in the blanket remains at well below critical mass, hybrid reactors have a much lower risk of suffering an accident than conventional reactors, as runaway reactions and consequent meltdown are impossible.

Finally, the power output of a hybrid reactor can be easily varied. That would allow nuclear power to be combined with renewables, which are inherently unpredictable, to provide baseload power. _NS

The last mentioned advantage -- the ability to vary the output of the hybrid reactor to compensate for the unreliable power output of wind and solar -- is a bit of a stretch, a sop thrown to the few green deadheads with the attention span to read that far. It is a pity that science and technology have been reduced to that level, but there it is.

When a more reality-based politics comes to planet Earth, we will be able to look at scientific theories and technological applications for their own merits, without the "green affirmative action" misdirection.

Shuffling Microbes to Find the Magic Fuel Bug

An international team of researchers at Harvard have developed a tiny device to sort through millions of microbes and enzymes to find optimal fuel-producers.

In Massachusetts, a team [linking] researchers at Harvard, MIT, the Universite de Strasbourg, YNano, the National Science Foundation, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and the Agence National de la Recherche have developed what they call a “microfluidic sorting device” that will use 10 million times less reagent and reduce screening costs by a factor of 1 million in identifying potential biofuels-producing microorganisms and separating them from less attractive enzymes or bacteria. _BiofuelsDigest

The scientists have created a microfluidics device using an array of forking nanotubules capable of selecting between levels of cellular activity.

Basically the name “microfluidic sorting device” says it all. In this process, microscopic drops of liquid pass through a sequence of nanotubes that fork in two directions. The drops are treated with a surfactant to prevent sticking and clumping, so they act more like marbles in a chute than normal drops of liquid. Trapped within each drop is an individual cell. When a drop reaches the fork, a laser measures the level of fluorescence in the cell. The higher the fluorescence, the higher the cell’s activity level, and the more desirable it is. The active cells are pulled into the “keep” fork by an electrical force called dielectrophoresis. The other cells drop off into the “discard” fork. In one demonstration, the device sorted 100 million (yes million) variants of a high-efficiency enzyme... _CleanTechnica

This type of high-throughput screening of potential microbes is already used in other fields of science -- including pharmacology. Such tools will speed up the search for better fuels, better drugs, better materials of all types. We are living in a biological world of immense diversity. Humans now have the keys to the world's treasure trove.

B&W mPower Modular Nuclear Reactor

The Babcock and Wilcox modular reactor, mPower, has something of a head start due to B&W's long relationship with the US military. B&W has demonstrated its ability to build safe, reliable, durable nuclear reactors. The mPower design incorporates a number of innovations that should make civilian nuclear power safer, more reliable, quicker to implement, and far more scalable.

The central innovation here that we believe makes this whole thing work is to have an integral nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) that we can manufacture within our own vertically integrated supply chain.
When you look at traditional light water reactors in the fleet—pressurized water reactors (PWRs)—it’s a pretty complicated nuclear steam supply system. You have a reactor, you have a pressurizer and typically you have four steam generators all in their own heavy pressure vessel, all connected by pretty big primary system piping and large reactor coolant pumps. That’s a complicated structure that certainly cannot be fabricated in a factory and shipped to the site.

By integrating all of those components into a single module, not only do we create a scenario whereby we can manufacture that within a factory and ship it in total to a site—which takes the entire first year of a typical nuclear plant construction cycle off the critical path and allows you to do it in parallel with other activities—but obviously you gain all of the efficiencies you have in a factory setting relative to a stick-built field construction effort.

That’s the explicit advantage, but implicit in all of that is passive safety. Because there is no primary system coolant piping and no large nozzles or penetrations on the reactor vessel, there is no possibility for a large break loss-of-coolant accident, what’s called a large break LOCA. The only pipes that go in and out of the reactor are the secondary side, the feedwater and then the steam coming back out, which isn’t connected to the primary system at all, and then there is a small cleanup line and some emergency injection line. All of those are relatively small penetrations.

The technology that paved the way conceptually for passive safety is the Westinghouse AP1000. But because the AP1000 is still a large plant with external steam generators, they have large break LOCAs, their core gets uncovered during an accident scenario. Even though their safety injection system is passive in the sense that there are no active high pressure injection pumps, it is still pretty complicated and needs to be rather robust because it has to deal with the reactor core that gets uncovered.

With our design, the core never gets uncovered under any postulated design-basis accident. That is an incredible step forward from a safety perspective and greatly simplifies and reduces the challenge that you need to address with an emergency core cooling system. That is a separate result of the innovative approach with an integral NSSS.

Because you can have a much simpler passive safety system, that takes cost out of the nuclear island on the safety side. When you shrink down a plant, typically you’re dealing with negative economies of scale but here we have changed the game and reformulated the overall concept of the nuclear island in a way that allows us to be cost-competitive relative to a large gigawatt-class plant. _PowerGenWorldwide

There is much more information at the link above, including details about improved safety and security, information about the convenient size of the reactor -- rail car sized -- etc. mPower can be shipped anywhere, and will be installed underground. The reactor core can be changed out all at one time, for speedier changeover.

More information should be forthcoming soon. Since B&W is an established manufacturer with a good track record, it is likely to be treated a bit differently by the NRC than startups such as NuScale and Hyperion.

But expect environmental groups to do everything possible to slow the approval and licensing of all forms of newer, safer, more economical nuclear power. Environmental organisations are in it for the power and the cash. They see clean and abundant energy as a threat to their power, and will fight it tooth and nail, using any subterfuge readily at hand.

Biorefineries: Local and Regional Bioenergy Expands

Japan"s Mitsui and Denmark's Inbicon are combining expertise to build a number of biorefineries across Southeast Asia.

The agreement grants Mitsui the right to build a number of biomass refineries in Southeast Asia using Inbicon’s technology. Mitsui intends to apply the technology in the palm oil industry, where wastes from palm oil production can be converted into ethanol, solid biofuel for energy production, and animal feed. The agreement marks the first sale of licensing for Inbicon.

With the agreement, we have taken an important step towards the establishing of a plant engineering business for the production of second-generation ethanol in Southeast Asia. We have already committed considerable resources to the development of this new business. Furthermore, we are expecting to expand the cooperation with Inbicon into other markets.


—Shunichi Yamashita, Director of Mitsui

Inbicon A/S, a subsidiary of DONG Energy A/S, develops technology for conversion and refining of soft ligno-cellulosic biomass into fuel, feed, and green chemistry products. The company has operated a pilot plant since 2003, and late last year opened its first Inbicon Biomass Refinery in Kalundborg, Denmark to demonstrate its technology. The plant converts wheat straw into fuel ethanol, animal feed, and lignin pellets for energy production. (Earlier post.)

Inbicon uses a three-stage pretreatment process: mechanical, hydrothermal, and enzymatic treatment of biomass. The pre-treatment yields a much higher concentration of sugar in the liquid going to fermentation, according to the company, and the resulting beer or alcohol concentration is at least double the normal percentage in cellulosic ethanol processing. In other words, each batch has a less water and more ethanol, further increasing yield and efficiency.

The Inbicon plant uses enzymes from Novozymes and from Genencor (Danisco) for its pre-treatment. _GCC

This large scale distributed project is only a hint of what is to come from bioenergy.   Notice the involvement of Mitsui, Inbicon, Novozymes, and Genencor -- along with a number of smaller contractors.

It is vital to understand the combined nature of Mitsui's approach to biofuels.  First they refine the oils from palm oil into diesel, then they refine the biomass waste efficiently into ethanol.  The resulting ethanol can be used in the oils-to-biodiesel process, or for any other purpose ethanol is used.

Southeast Asia is becoming a hotbed of biofuels and bioenergy -- no doubt at least partially because of the massive expansion of oilseed plantations and projects there.  Environmentalists who would otherwise attempt to stop such projects are at something of a disadvantage in Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, etc.

There are ways to grow massive quantities of biomass and oilseeds.  Some of those ways are sustainable and environmentally responsible.  But environmentalists do not care -- they simply want to stop new energy production in order to drive energy starvation and the great dieoff.org.   If you can stop new energy via legislation, regulation, or tort, you can make peak energy and peak oil a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Crude Oil Hits Ceiling as Hedgefunds Attack Euro

Guest Article:

Oil Market Summary for 02/22/2010 to 02/26/2010

Crude oil broke through the $80 a barrel ceiling repeatedly during the week but kept falling back as hedge funds placed big bets on the Euro’s decline. 

The fiscal drama in Greece held global markets hostage much of the week as worries about the impact of the Greek crisis on the euro outweighed comments from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke about continued low interest rates in the U.S., pushing the euro down against the dollar and damping crude prices. 

The euro recovered some ground on Friday amid new reports of European aid for Greece after falling to a nine-month low of $1.3440 on Thursday. Germany’s state-owned bank KfW may take part in a planned Greek bond offering next week, according to market reports.

 The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that a small group of elite hedge fund traders have concluded that the euro could be headed to parity with the dollar and their bearish bets are increasing the downward pressure on the 16-nation currency.

The Journal compared the situation to the hedge fund attack on the dollar in 2008. However, the trades are not expected to lead to a collapse of the currency as the attacks of George Soros on the British pound did in 1992, the paper said.

 Positive U.S. economic data on Friday, including a revised fourth-quarter GDP annual growth rate of 5.9%, help crude oil futures claw back some of Thursday’s losses and near the $80 threshold again. Nymex’s benchmark West Texas Intermediate settled at $79.66 on Friday, after topping $80 earlier in the week 

In spite of crude’s difficulties in staying above $80, some analysts issued bullish prognoses for energy futures. Goldman Sachs forecast a new trading range of $85 to $95, up from the $70 to $80 of the past several months, amid supply disruptions from the North Sea and Venezuela and the impact of the Total refinery strike, which was resolved earlier this week.

 Other analysts, too, looked for fundamental supply and demand considerations to reassert themselves amid the currency turmoil and lift crude oil futures into a higher trading range. Oil futures prices gained more than 9% in February but remained below January’s highs.

Source: http://www.oilprice.com/article-crude-oil-hits-ceiling-in-week-as-hedge-funds-attack-euro.html

By  Darrell Delamaide of OilPrice.com who focus on, Fossil Fuels Metals, Crude Oil Prices and Geopolitics To find out more visit their website at:http://www.oilprice.com

NuScale Modular 40 MWe Reactors

NuScale Power is an offshoot of an Oregon State University project financed by Idaho National Labs. The company employs over 40 highly trained professionals, and is working with Kiewit Constructors to develop modular manufacturing and construction plans for NuScale's small reactors.

The NuScale reactor operates using the principles of natural circulation. No pumps are needed to circulate water through the reactor Instead, the system uses a convection process. Water is heated as it passes over the fuel or core (4).
As it is heated the water rises within the interior of the vessel. Once the heated water reaches the top of the riser (5), it is drawn downward by water that is cooled passing through the steam generators (6). The cooler water has a higher density. It is pulled by gravity back down to the bottom of the reactor where it is again drawn over the core.
Water in the reactor system and the Steam Generator system are kept separate. As the hot water in the reactor system passes over the hundreds of tubes in the Steam Generators, heat is transferred through the tube walls.
Water inside the tubes turns to steam. The steam turns turbines (7) which are attached by a single shaft to the electrical generator.
After passing through the turbines, the steam losses its energy. It is cooled back into liquid form in the condenser (9) then pumped by the feed water pump (10) back to the steam generator (6), where it begins the cycle again. __NuScale
The nuclear reactor and steam generator, also known as the Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS), is a self-contained assembly of reactor core and steam generator tube bundles within a single pressure vessel. Throughout the design, every effort was made to employ existing off-the-shelf technologies to minimize, and in many cases eliminate, the need for additional research and development. The primary coolant (water) is moved by natural circulation, eliminating the need for primary coolant pumps and external power. The NSSS and the passive safety heat removal systems are housed within the compact steel containment.

The reactor module, consisting of the containment and its contents, can be entirely fabricated at existing manufacturing facilities in the U.S. As a result, construction can be done on a significantly compressed schedule. Compared to a typical PWR plant, the NSSS parameters are much lower. Thermal rating of the reactor is several times smaller. Coolant pressure and steam pressure is about 50% lower than that of a typical PWR. The power generation system is greatly simplified. It implements a turbine-generator set and condensate/feedwater pump. The entire turbine-generator can be replaced with a spare unit for overhaul. Additionally, NuScale plants will use nuclear fuel assemblies similar to those in today’s commercial nuclear plants. The only difference is the length of the fuel assemblies (6 feet for a NuScale system instead of the traditional 12 feet) and the number of assemblies in the reactor. __NuScale

NuScale is caught in the same Obama Twilight Zone as the rest of the US energy sector.  Despite promises to rejuvenate the US nuclear industry, Obama has done nothing more than talking.  The necessary steps for anyone serious about reforming government energy obstructionism would involve a much needed reform of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- the greatest governmental roadblock to a safer and more abundant US nuclear energy future.

Secondarily, reforming the US tort system and regulatory system to shorten the time of construction of nuclear plants, and to make it harder for frivolous lawsuits to halt expensive projects in the middle of planning and construction.

Obama will take neither of the above steps, because he is not serious.  He is a clownish psychological neotenate, indoctrinated into a quasi-religious dogma of third-world-liberation leftism by his late mother.

Bloom Energy Founder KR Sridhar Interview

Both Brian Westenhaus and Brian Wang have been reporting on the Bloom Energy fuel cell which was highlighted on the US TV show "60 Minutes" recently as an energy breakthrough. Both Brians provide useful insights into what is happening behind the headlines.

The interviewer in the video above attempts to discover from Bloom's founder, "what is so special about Bloom's fuel cells?" Sridhar answers in general terms, providing some intriguing hints. One cannot expect Sridhar to divulge trade secrets in such a competitive environment, and in advance of a public stock offering.

The Bloom fuel cells can apparently be "run backwards" to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. That was the original idea Sridhar had for NASA -- to create oxygen for Mars' atmosphere. That project was cancelled, but the idea survived and was developed.

Sridhar (in the video and earlier in the day) also explains how Bloom may enhance the fuel cell in the future for a push into the domestic market in about a decade and the enhancement represents both a step forward and a step back. Carbon dioxide and water are byproducts of the gas-to-electricity reaction. By adding some additional "plumbing" components, the fuel cell can capture the water, run it through the fuel cell later and produce hydrogen. Hydrogen could then be stored until needed to power a car or provide electricity to a home.

The water-to-hydrogen reaction will require additional electricity. Bloom suggests that solar panels can provide this power. Although the fuel cell could do this reaction now, Bloom isn't putting in the components because the market isn't ready, said Sridhar. So having a path to energy storage: a step forward.

So what is the step back? Bloom's patents discuss taking both the carbon dioxide and hydrogen, running them through the fuel cell and producing a methane-like fuel. _GreenTechMedia

If Bloom Energy has solved some of the harder problems of fuel cells -- as Sridhar claims -- we may be seeing some disruptive new technology coming from the company. Up to this point, we seem to be seeing what is in many ways a better fuel cell.

Sridhar plans to sell large units only for at least a decade. These could be used as power backup units for corporations, factories, hospitals, city disaster units, and even large power utilities. The cost of power production is still too expensive to use Bloom units as primary substitutes for coal, nuclear, or gas powered generators.

Enerkem and Waste Management: Waste to Biofuels

Waste to biofuels just got a big boost from garbage giant Waste Management, in the form of a $51 million investment to Enerkem. Enerkem's biomass and waste to liquids process -- pictured above -- uses thermochemical processes to turn potentially large volumes of waste into clean and useful fuels, and high value chemicals.

Enerkem uses a thermochemical gasification process to produce a uniform syngas, which is subsequently converted into liquid fuels, such as ethanol, as well as biochemicals. The technology is able to process diverse carbon-based feedstocks, including sorted municipal solid waste, construction and demolition wood, as well as agricultural and forest residues. Enerkem’s technology can convert one tonne of raw material (dry base) into 360 liters (95 gallons) of cellulosic ethanol.

Enerkem’s gasification technology is based on a bubbling fluidized bed reactor with a front-end feeding system that is capable of handling fluffy material with no need to pelletize it. Slurries or liquids can also be fed into the gasifier through appropriately designed injectors. The gasification is carried out using air as a partial oxidation agent or using oxygen-enriched air, with the oxygen-enrichment level tailored to the desired composition of the synthetic gas. The presence of steam at a specific partial pressure is also part of the process...

...Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. The investment in Enerkem complements Waste Management’s comprehensive waste services in the areas of recycling, landfill, waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy. _GCC

This Biofuels Digest story provides a projection of the near-term growth in biofuels production across an array of approaches. Includes an interesting graph.

Clearly ethanol has a head start. But biomass to liquids and microbial fuels -- such as algal fuels -- are on the front burner and ready to take off.

Traveling Wave Reactor Works Well -- In Models

Recent developments in supercomputing have enabled the TerraPower scientists to simulate the traveling wave concept and establish its feasibility, they say.

Machiels agrees. "The modeling capability that John Gilleland's team has achieved has allowed a lot of progress. They have fantastic computing capabilities," he said. The team's supercomputer cluster has more than 1,000 times the computational strength of a desktop computer, TerraPower says.

The team draws on support from MIT, DOE's Argonne National Laboratory and other scientific centers, and future testing will require more DOE support. But at this point, the project is a private research venture.

It recalls the famous Tuxedo Park laboratory established by the millionaire investor and amateur scientist Alfred Lee Loomis at his mansion outside New York City in 1926. Its scientists went on to provide critical research in the development of radar and the atomic bomb in World War II.

"This is a type of work that requires a deep, deep pocket," said Machiels. "The fact that this is being funded now by a private firm is good, but very unusual." TerraPower is backed by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft's former chief technology officer, who now is CEO of Intellectual Ventures. _NYT

Ultra-sophisticated computer modeling supports the theory behind TerraPower's traveling wave reactor approach to use nuclear waste as fuel. Of course, TerraPower's main backer -- Nathan Myhrvold -- was formerly the chief technology officer for Microsoft, so he should know something about computers and computer modeling.  It is good to remember that computer modeling has been an extremely potent tool for many areas of science and engineering.  We should not allow the perversion of modeling by alarmist climatologists to taint the entire enterprise.

This reactor (pdf) works something like a cigarette. A chain reaction is launched in one end of a closed cylinder of spent uranium fuel, creating a slow-moving "deflagration," a wave of nuclear fission reactions that keeps breeding neutrons as it makes way through the container, keeping the self-sustaining reaction going.

And it goes and goes, perhaps for 100 years, said former Bechtel Corp. physicist John Gilleland. He heads TerraPower LLC, a private research team based outside Seattle that is pursuing the traveling wave reactor design.

"We believe we've developed a new type of nuclear reactor that can represent a nearly infinite supply of low-cost energy, carbon-free energy for the world," Gilleland said in a presentation.

...In the traveling wave reactor, the fuel, initially, is likely to be the vast U.S. stores of depleted uranium, which don't themselves pose a proliferation risk. Plutonium is formed in the reaction process but undergoes transmutation into other elements and is essentially consumed. Depleted uranium is a heavy, lead-like residue from making or enriching uranium fuel. Lacking the volatile isotope U-235 that is used in conventional nuclear power plant fuel and nuclear weapons, depleted uranium is currently used for conventional anti-tank ammunition and in the keels of sailboats. _NYT

When computer modeling works, it is because the researchers involved are honest enough to test the models against physical observations -- rather than the other way around, as in the climate science of carbon hysteria.