The Surprising Reality of a Clean, Abundant Coal Future

Other than perhaps methane hydrates, coal seems to be the most abundant and widely dispersed fossil fuel available for human use. While there are roughly 1,000 gigatons of proven world coal reserves, it is estimated that there are roughly 3,000 gigatons of coal under the North Sea alone! It is likely that world coal reserves have been grossly underestimated.

The problem that is set out for humans is how to use the massively abundant coal resource in a clean and responsible manner.

The US DOE has given 36 month research grants to 7 US universities, to spur the development of multiple breakthroughs in achieving cleaner and more responsible coal use.

The selected projects, each 36 months in duration, include:

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta, Ga. This project will improve the understanding of turbulent flame propagation characteristics of syngas and HHC fuels at realistic conditions and also in inhomogeneous environments, such as in premixer nozzle boundary layers and core flows—while extending existing data sets to a broader reactant class of HHC fuels, such as mixtures diluted with CO2, H2O, and N2, at realistic pressures, temperatures, and turbulence intensities and other design/operating conditions, including systems with extensive levels of exhaust gas recirculation (EGR).

This research will also develop physics-based models of turbulent burning rates in realistic flows to further assist the gas turbine industry. (DOE share: $404,404; recipient share: $101,212)

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. This project will develop a database of turbulent burning velocities, NOx mechanism validation data (including ‘first-of-a-kind’ direct measurements of NNH to NO reaction rates), a comprehensive fuel mechanism with a validated NOx submechanism, and experimental data on the effect of contaminants on laminar flame speed and ignition kinetics.

This scientific research will enable the development of syngas/HHC-fired gas turbines to achieve very low emissions through the design of advanced modeling tools that are carefully validated. (DOE share: $501,711; recipient share: $125,500)

University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas. This project seeks to develop integrated film cooling and thermal barrier coatings (TBC) configurations that will mitigate the effects of contaminants that naturally occur when using syngas/HHC fuels. Experimental simulations of optimized cooling designs and detailed aero-thermal measurements will guide the development of improved computational models of these complex designs.
The University of Texas research will focus on film cooling crater and trench configurations on a simulated vane experiencing active deposition of contaminants. Partner Penn State University will focus research on the optimization of film cooling configurations for the contoured endwalls. An optimum cooling configuration for the endwall-vane junction will be developed based on the results of the joint studies at Penn State and University of Texas. (DOE share: $500,000; recipient share: $120,000)

University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D. This research will develop the heat transfer and deposition predictive tools and surface protective cooling technologies which allow for the reliable design of leading edge cooling schemes in a syngas environment. This research is important since it has been found that cooling the leading edge of a first stage of a modern gas turbine offers considerable challenges due to an aggressive heat transfer environment and a very modest pressure difference for cooling.

The University of North Dakota studies will be performed at three different experimental rigs to investigate: the effects of leading edge diameters on stagnation region deposition rates and heat transfer augmentation under a variety of conditions; the effectiveness levels for film cooling geometries on both smooth and rough surfaces; and new internal cooling methods which may be able to accommodate stagnation region heat loads at the aggressive inlet temperatures of modern gas turbines. (DOE share: $500,000; recipient share: $125,000)

Louisiana State University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, La. This project will develop novel molecular dynamics methods to improve the efficiency of novel TBC materials, and demonstrate the new TBC systems under IGCC environments. Because computational materials based TBC design tools are currently not available, this research offers the possibility for completely new efficient TBC computational design tool, making a step change to current advanced TBC design methodology.

In this research project, the most promising TBC compositions will be subject to high performance computing, material characterizations, and oxidation and corrosion tests, including a High Temperature/High Pressure Durability Test Rig to evaluate the durability of the coatings. (DOE share: $504,863; recipient share: $129,808)

University of California-Irvine, Irvine, Calif. This project will investigate degradation mechanisms of hot-turbine hot section component protective oxides and high-temperature TBCs unique to coal-derived syngas and HHC fuel. This research is important because preliminary testing has shown that the chemical composition and growth kinetics of protective thermally grown oxides (TGOs) are substantially altered for turbine systems operating on syngas and HHC fuels. Thus, one key objective of this new research project is to identify the root cause this anomalous oxidation behavior and develop mitigation strategies.

This project will address thermo-chemical and thermo-mechanical mechanisms by correlating results of accelerated coating degradation with the syngas/HHC environment and the impurities characteristics of coal-derived syngas and HHC fuels. This improved mechanistic understanding of the degradation of critical turbine system materials in HHC-fueled systems may also guide the development of more robust materials sets that could be important to the gas turbine industry. (DOE share: $500,000; recipient share: $125,000)

Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, N.Y. This project will explore the science and technology of advanced TBCs in IGCC turbines that use HHC fuels. Recent research data indicate that the current bill of coating materials is not directly translatable to the moisture-rich, ash-laden environment present with syngas/HHC fuels. Thus, the Stony Brook University research focuses on a multi-layer, multifunctional strategy comprising of discretely engineered coating layers to combat the various technical issues through a concerted effort integrating material science, processing science and performance studies, including recent developments in advanced in-situ thermal spray coating property measurement for full-field enhancement of coating and process reliability. _GCC

Massive new coal, gas, and oil fields are likely to be discovered -- mostly offshore, since most of the Earth's surface is covered by water. Massive deposits of methane hydrates will go largely unutilised, until safe and economic methods of retrieving such deposits are developed. From a biologic and microbial standpoint, planet Earth has a limitless potential for growing biomass and producing bio-energy -- and billions of dollars are being spent to perfect various approaches to bioenergy -- which has the advantage that it can be developed virtually anywhere on Earth, and even off-planet, given sunlight and CO2.

And still you have the molten core of Earth, producing massive quantities of usable heat. Sunlight itself is a massive, relatively unused resource which waits mainly for well-designed orbital solar power platforms for best large-scale development and exploitation.

Finally, you have the best baseload power source of all -- safe, advanced, abundant nuclear fission, with hundreds of thousands of years of fuel given responsible fuel recycling, breeding, and inter-locking fuel cycles for various fertile and fissile fuels.

In other words, peak energy is a million years away, unless people get stupid and go for the great human dieoff out of incompetence and suicidal leadership. By then, surely humans will have learned to control fusion, so that peak energy would be further offset in time by hundreds of millions of years.

Of course, if humans stay around this planet for too long, the local star will pay a visit, imparting perhaps more energy to Earth than any humans-still-around might wish. Which brings up the topic of space travel . . . . . .

Interview w/ Keith Schaefer, of Oil & Gas Investments Bulletin

Keith Schaefer was interviewed on a range of topics covering investments in oil and gas, by The Energy Report. Schaefer's comments on oil prices were particularly interesting.

TER: ... Does oil need to get past $80 to have a run?

KS: No, not at all. Oil doesn't need to run. I'm happy to see oil trade here for the next five years, because there are lots of companies that make fantastic profits at $75 oil. Technology is lowering costs in the oil patch. With the new horizontal drilling technology and multi-stage fracking, all kinds of new plays are opening up. Literally. Just yesterday, a new play opened up in Canada that no one had really paid much attention to. One of the independent consultants estimated that there are over 6 billion barrels of oil just in that one formation in Alberta in B.C. So all over the place you're seeing new basins, new formations being opened up with all this new technology, and it's relatively low-cost oil, not compared to the Saudis per se, but by the standards everywhere else in the world, it's very profitable oil at these prices. The oil price does not need to go any higher.

TER: Do you see it staying in that range for the next couple of years?

KS: That's a question that only history is going to be able to tell us. But I would suggest that, with the decline in demand in the U.S. and Western Europe being offset by the rise of China and India, we're going to see a fairly stable oil price for a while.

TER: You were talking just a few seconds ago about technology opening up some new plays. At the same time, fracking is not all that new. Multi-stage fracking has been around for a while. and horizontal drilling has been around for a while. What are new technologies in oil and gas exploration that we haven't heard about?

KS: There are new ones coming up all the time. But let's just go back to fracking and horizontal drilling for a second. Although those technologies have been around for 40, almost 50, years, it was just 10 or 12 years ago that the technologies got perfected enough so that they could start producing oil and gas out of rock. That was the Barnett shale.

What you've seen here now is that many new plays around Canada and the U.S., where the technology was developed, have become newly commercial. Even though they're old technologies, they're still opening up many, many new plays all around the world—the European shale gas plays, the African shale gas, and that's just scratching the surface. We're going to see huge growth in Europe and Africa shale gas over the next 20 years. You're right, they are old technologies, but they're being used in new basins for the first time and that's creating big value for shareholders.

One of the new technologies that I'm really intrigued by is radial drilling, which is used in heavy oil basins. I believe this is a technology developed by Halliburton Co. (HAL). Little jets are sent into the very porous heavy oil formations and are able to create wormholes 100 meters out into the formation, to get oil to flow back to the well. Before this technology was being used, you could only get about 3 to 5 meters outside of the wellbore. It's a huge increase in potential production and reserve creation.

TER: And that's making some of these old basins profitable again?

KS: Yes. What's happening is that the old basins that have been worked over now have a new lease on life. I would say that heavy oil formations haven't really been used or exploited that much. The world's been very focused on getting the light oil out. But over the last dozen years, much more time has been spent focusing on the heavy oil. They're continually finding ways to improve the technology and lower the cost.

TER: What are the big differences between heavy oil and light oil?

KS: Light oil is easy to process, and doesn't need much work to get into the form that would go into your car. Heavy oil has heavy products in it like metals; it's the basic component of asphalt. We have to spend a lot of money to remove the asphalt, rocks, and bits of metal to make heavy oil into various types of fuel. Heavy oil doesn't go into your car; it will go into heating products or diesel, or products where it doesn't need to be refined quite as much. _Schaefer_Interview

There is a lot of heavy oil that is easy to access. When more refineries are equipped to deal with heavy oil economically, expect yet another large source of hydrocarbons to increase -- rather than peak.

When humans turn away from oil and other fossil fuels, it will be because they do not need them any longer.

Building Oil Glut in Middle East Has Interesting Overtones

While the usual suspects continue to predict higher oil prices, most intelligent observers are careful to watch trends. One of the most important trends for energy analysts to watch is the growing glut of crude in middle eastern floating storage, and what effect this glut of crude will have on future oil markets.

The Gulf region, which supplies 40 per cent of the world’s oil, is glutted with crude that producers cannot immediately sell, even as US and European oil has risen above US$82 a barrel.

The amount of oil in long-term floating storage in the Gulf and Red Sea is estimated at 30 million barrels, or enough to supply all of North, South and Central America for a day.

The trouble is that most Middle East crude is not sold in the Americas. Instead, it is shipped to the growing economies of Asia and, to a lesser extent, markets in Europe.

While Europe is not oversupplied with crude because of a seasonal drop in North Sea oil output from maintenance and repairs at production plants, Asia has as much as it can use.

Increasing Russian supply to Asia is also a factor in slower Middle East sales there.

...While refinery maintenance in Far East markets has contributed to the oversupply in recent months, oil shipments to Asian markets through Russia’s East Siberia Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline are causing a longer-lasting headache for Gulf producers.

The ESPO blend of crude shipped through the pipeline from recently developed oilfields in eastern Siberia is now “a popular alternative” to Middle East crude, JBC reported.

The head-on competition between Russian crudes, which also flow to Europe, and those from the Middle East is likely to continue for at least some months.

At the moment, the prices of futures contracts for crude bought from Middle East and European suppliers for November delivery are almost the same, so there is little opportunity for traders to make a profit from the difference.

The longer Middle East crude remains in storage, the more downward pressure it will put on international oil prices as it is released to the market.

The US government yesterday reported stockpiles of petrol in the US had increased by 729,000 barrels in the preceding week, suggesting weak demand from US motorists in the crucial summer driving season.

And high unemployment in Europe and early signs that the powerhouse economies of Asia and India may be faltering raise worries about global economic recovery. _TheNational

The story lends more support to reports that Russia is increasing its oil production for the long haul. It also raises questions about what is driving recent runups in oil prices above $80 in US and European markets.

Investment bankers and hedge fund operators will always make predictions which benefit themselves. But unless you want to become a perpetual victim of the grifting instinct of traders and bankers, you will wish to look more deeply into underlying trends.

The gluts discussed above suggest short to intermediate term trends in demand and supply which should limit how far and how quickly oil prices will rise. Markets are always subject to considerable turbulence due to speculation and fallout from the instability of national economies, so always take the economic stupidity of governments and central banks into account when gazing into your crystal balls.

Turbine Engine Hybrids for Trucks

NewEnergyandFuel
Turbine engines are lighter and more efficient than piston engines, but they are best run at constant speed -- something that automobile and truck engines cannot do. But if you use an integrated small turbine engine to charge the battery for an electric vehicle, the turbine fits perfectly into the system. More from Brian Westenhaus:

In total efficiency turbos win. For thermal efficiency a diesel would win, but add in the mechanical efficiency and the turbo wins. Internal combustion with pistons, rods, cranks, and the valve gear generate lots of friction and resistance. And turbines weigh much less allowing for more battery or capacitor capacity.

The design characteristics of Capstone’s turbine permits ultra-low emissions, high-fuel economy, multi-fuel capability, no coolants or lubricating oil, and little to no maintenance in hybrid electric vehicle applications.

Another angle is the fuel, turbines can use a much wider range of products than a diesel, permitting much more versatility in choice and cost control. Capstone’s microturbine technology offers many benefits, including an extremely low emission levels that meet the most stringent CARB and EPA 2010 requirements without any exhaust after-treatment. That’s a major point alone.

...Light weight, multifuel, low emissions, very high efficiency, no coolants, little or no lubrication oil, and a dramatically lower maintenance cost – micro turbines have a bright future when the unit cost comes down. _NewEnergyandFuel

Such turbine hybrids may find a place in locomotives and marine freight uses. Diesels are powerful and efficient, but cannot adapt to as many fuel types as turbines. Sometime in the intermediate future, that may be the deciding factor.

Vast Deposits of Oil From Ancient Microscopic Organisms Still Untapped

NYTScientists have known for quite a while that most of Earth's oil came from vast numbers of oceanic microscopic organisms -- rather than from dead dinosaurs. From diatoms to micro-algae to cyanobacteria and more, these microscopic life forms thrived on warmer seas and higher levels of atmospheric CO2 than are presently available to sea life. Many of these sea creatures are capable of converting gaseous or dissolved CO2 directly into oils and hydrocarbons of various types, and would cheerfully welcome much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans, if only they could get it.

Geologists scour the planet for the sedimentary basins of ancient seas, in order to find the vast deposits of oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons still waiting to be discovered. Humans may have used perhaps one tenth of exploitable oil deposits, but Al Fin engineers reckon we have used only about one one hundredth. Not that oil is an ideal energy source. Far from it. But we should know that we are quite far from running out -- even while we are discovering how to grow these tiny organisms for ourselves, to produce a wide range of materials, feeds, and fuels at the time and place of our own choosing.

Some of the ancestral waters that made the planet’s oil still exist, like the Gulf of Mexico, while others have long vanished, like the ocean that produced the massive oil fields of the Middle East. The bodies come and go because the earth’s crust, through seemingly rigid, actually moves a great deal over geologic time, tearing apart continents and ocean basins and rearranging them like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

The secret of the oil story turned out to be understanding how the bygone oceans, ancient seas and smaller bodies of water produced complex environmental conditions that raised the prevalence of microscopic life and ensured its deep burial, producing what eventually became the earth’s main oil reservoirs.

The clues accumulated over more than a century and included discoveries from geology, chemistry and paleontology. An early indication was that petroleum discoveries were always associated with ancient beds of sedimentary rock — the kind that forms when debris rains down through water for ages and slowly grows into thick seabed layers.

...The process typically starts in warm seas ideal for the incubation of microscopic life. The sheer mass is hard to imagine. But scientists note that every drop of seawater contains more than a million tiny organisms.

Oil production begins when surface waters become so rich in microscopic life that the rain of debris outpaces decay on the seabed. The result is thickening accumulations of biologic sludge.

...“The organics got buried quickly because of the heavy sediment flow,” Dr. Tinker said. “So they didn’t get biodegraded as quickly. You preserved the organic richness.”

He said the flow was so heavy that the growing accumulations keep pressing the lower sediment layers deeper into the earth, forcing them into hot zones where the organic material got transformed into oil. The process involves a long series of chemical reactions that slowly turn life molecules into inanimate crude.

“The gulf has miles and miles of sediments,” he said. “So that gets the source rocks down into the kitchen where they cook.”

The standard temperature for oil formation is between 120 and 210 degrees Fahrenheit.

...Many countries and oil companies are now racing to exploit the geological happenstance of deep coastal waters. Hot spots include offshore areas of Angola, Azerbaijan, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Libya and Tanzania, while countries like Canada and Norway, which have long pursued offshore drilling, are pushing ahead with new plans. Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm, estimates that global deepwater extraction could roughly double by 2015, the output rivaling what Saudi Arabia produces on land. _NYT

The new offshore oil fields coming on line will rival Saudi Arabian production -- even if the Saudis decide to ramp up their production even higher than at present.

But many more giant fields await discovery until geologists develop better tools to find ancient ocean basins lying beneath subsequent overlaying deposits of seismic and volcanic turmoil. For most of the planet, geologists simply do not have a clue what lies beneath. They will need far better tools than the primitive seismic, electromagnetic, and other tools which currently limit their vision. But those tools are coming. And those vast unknown deposits will be found, if they are ever needed.

Government and Green Push for Smart Grid Not a Good Idea

The so-called "smart grid" is a certain recipe for disaster, according to security experts who met in Las Vegas recently. Government and faux environmental groups are pressing utilities hard to install the electronic infrastructure for the "smart grid," even as better informed persons are discovering more reasons to object.

Utilities are being encouraged to install this smart-grid technology--network-connected devices to help intelligently monitor and manage power usage--through funding from the U.S. government's 2009 stimulus package. The smart systems could save energy and automatically adjust usage within homes and businesses. Customers might, for example, agree to let a utility remotely turn off their air conditioners at times of peak use in exchange for a discount.

But to receive the stimulus money, utilities will have to install new devices across their entire customer base quickly. Security experts say that this could lead to problems down the road--as-yet-unknown vulnerabilities in hardware and software could open up new ways for attackers to manipulate equipment and take control of the energy supply.

Smart-grid deployments involve installing smart meters in homes and businesses across a utility's coverage area. These meters can communicate with the utility and with other networked devices--usually via a wireless network of some type. Some ways to hijack this type of equipment have already been revealed. Last year, Mike Davis, a senior security consultant at IOActive, created a piece of software that could spread automatically between smart grid hardware in different homes. The software would then be capable of shutting equipment down.

The security of the smart grid was a major topic at Black Hat. The conference brings together researchers from academia, industry, government, and the hacking underground.

...A serious vulnerability might make it possible to shut down the power supply to an entire city.

...It may be particularly hard to protect the smart grid because would-be attackers will have physical access to components connected to the network. Pollet says that all it takes is for one determined attacker to find a way in--information about how to hack a device is then quickly shared online. "Those who have the intent and motivation can do this stuff," he says.

Shawn Moyer, who practices network security for Agura Digital Security, says he's concerned that utilities don't have expertise in network security. For example, he says, many advertise that they offer encryption in their smart-grid products, but on further inspection, there are problems with how that encryption is implemented.

Moyer and Keltner revealed a proof-of-concept smart-grid attack at Black Hat. They used a customizable piece of radio equipment and some freely available software to find smart meters on a network and circumvent the encryption used to protect them. If an attacker were to do the same, they say, it would be possible to issue commands that could misreport data to the utility or shut off power to some users. _TechnologyReview

Now that we know how easy it is for a small army of hackers to shut down global data networks, the vulnerability of the smart grid should not come as a big surprise. Nor should it surprise us that Obama Pelosi (along with their Green allies) is so eager to push the US into such a vulnerable position, as long as it can please one of its strongest backers.

When the momentum toward societal quasi-suicide grows this great, it is difficult for small numbers of persons to make a large difference. Sometimes it is smarter to simply look to the security of one's self, one's family, and one's community.

Carnival of Nuclear Energy # 12

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes is hosting the 12th Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy. Dan looks at 9 recent articles from the top nuclear bloggers -- making it easier for all of us to keep up with the nuclear action. Here's a brief excerpt:

Next Big Future
Brian Wang has two interesting reports. First, he writes that “stealth nuclear fusion company” Tri-alpha Energy has raised another $50 million.
Also, Brian won his bet to predict global uranium production in 2009. Now he offers some new predictions with a longer time frame. Check out his predictions for Kazakhstan uranium production for 2010 to 2015. And the new 2010, 2011 Kazakhstan uranium production bets with Dittmar.
Phronesisaical
Cheryl Rofer tackles the estimates in a report by the New York Times, and its source Robert Alvarez, about the amount of plutonium buried in nuclear wastes at Hanford. As Ricky Ricardo said famously to Lucy Ball, “Someone’s got some explaining to do.”
Atomic Insights
Is solar energy now cheaper than nuclear energy? I don’t think so and neither does Rod Adams who cautions readers not to be gullible over a report in the New York Times that relies on questionable data. Adams says the newspaper should have been more thorough in its fact checking before reporting on the study.
Nuclear Green

Charles Barton writes it is becoming increasingly likely that a small Generation IV nuclear plant will find its way onto the grounds of a coal fired power plant near you soon.

_Visit the 12thNukeCarny to see the rest.

Extra item of note: Charles Barton takes another look at the "Big Lots" nuclear reactor. The Big Lots reactor is a relatively low cost liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) nuclear reactor built "cheap but safe." By designing the reactor to run at lower temperature, it can be built with cheaper materials. By using the reactor as a "load following" or "peak demand" reactor, the wear and tear should be less, and the unit should last longer. Read Charles' description to get a better idea of what he is talking about.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners would have a heart attack just thinking about it, but most intelligent analysts will see a lot of things in Charles' idea to like.

Extra Special Bonus: Nuclear Reactor Renaissance, an IEEE Spectrum article looks at some of the new reactor designs which will help bring about an age of safer, more abundant, cleaner nuclear energy in the near future.

First, there are the new light-water reactors, which aren't radically different from what's out there right now but add better safety features. Then there are the small modular reactors that produce less than 300 megawatts but can be scaled up. Need more power? Just add more modules to your plant. Finally, there are the really-out-there designs, known in the industry as Generation IV.

The article looks at likely example reactors for each of the three classes mentioned in the quote above.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world is likely to jump into the nuclear renaissance before the US, due to the powerful influence of anti-nuclear faux environmental groups and ideologues well situated within the US government and within the US legal and judicial communities. Political activists can tie up a multi-billion dollar power plant project in judicial proceedings for so long that finance, legal, and other costs can destroy the project before it has a fair chance to get started.

Small modular reactor projects should be cheaper, quicker, easier, and more numerous, which will make it more difficult for the lefty-Luddites to stop them. But that assumes that the US NRC and other government agencies will give SMRs a chance to begin with.

New Oil Production and Discoveries Pushing Peak Oil Back

As predicted here near the first of this year, Russia is ramping up its energy production, with no peak in sight.

"We are ordering more advanced, heavier and mobile rigs. Now operators are willing to pay more for better efficiency," said Kim Kruschwitz, marketing manager at Russia's top drilling firm, Eurasia Drilling.

He said West Siberia - an oil Eldorado that helped the Soviet Union fund the arms race with the United States - could see output up 10 percent in coming years despite wide industry belief its reservoirs were ruined by speedy Soviet exploration.

"The gain in efficiency and output that results from improved technology will only become more pronounced in the next few years, and I expect Russian production to hold around the level of 10 million barrels per day for years to come," said Kruschwitz. _Source

OPEC nations are also likely to continue increasing output -- led by improved production from Iraq. Mexico is finally beginning to invest in new technologies to allow it to produce more out of its Gulf of Mexico fields and older giant fields, which have suffered declining production. Canada is beginning to do more than just think about exploiting its vast arctic reserves of oil and gas -- and is steadily and incrementally building its oil sands production, thanks to investments from China. North Dakota is setting new oil production records.

New oil finds in Egypt and several countries in Africa are stressing the ability of oil field companies to keep up with the demand. At least there will be a lot of free offshore rigs -- thanks to Obama and Salazar driving a stake through the heart of the Gulf of Mexico economies with a hasty and ill-advised oil moratorium.

New natural gas finds are breaking out all over -- from Eastern Europe to Lebanon to Southeast and East Asia. Technology for extracting and exploiting oil sands, oil shale, and heavy oils are only going to get better and more economical -- with steadily decreasing water and energy demands. Better methods of converting coal to liquids, gas to liquids, biomass to liquids are being invented and adapted weekly.

If we really get desperate for hydrocarbons (for materials production) in a hundred years or so, we may have to learn to develop methane clathrates safely and economically. Automated robotic harvesters make the most sense for such deep sea and arctic production.

But the real heart-breaker for true-believing peak oil disciples will be safer and more abundant forms of nuclear energy -- fission first, then fusion. All of that electricity and heat can be turned to an almost infinite number of ways of producing other forms of energy -- or for substituting for hydrocarbon combustion in ships, locomotives, industrial process energy, and other significant forms of energy use.

I am not describing a cornucopian future here. But if you wish, I certainly could. The main obstacle to a better future is the basic underlying dullness of those barely evolved apes, known as humans.

Life Without the Sun? Yes, If We Learn to Think

Ring of Fire
We like to say that life on Earth could not survive without the sun, but that isn't actually true. Without the sun the surface of the planet would freeze down to a certain depth, but the amount of energy contained in the molten planetary core could provide ample heat and electric power to maintain human civilisation for hundreds of thousands of years or longer.

From the western US to Australia (Queensland and Victoria), Indonesia, the Phillipines, Kamchatka, Alaska, and New Zealand, the Pacific Ring of Fire makes thermal energy available to much of the world's population. Similar "rings of fire" over the rest of the Earth extends this ample fund of energy to Europe, western and central Asia, and parts of Africa.

Jefferson Tester: The figure for the whole world is on the order of 100 million exojoules or quads [a quad is one quadrillion BTUs]. This is the part that would be useable. We now use worldwide just over 400 exojoules per year. So you do the math, and you know you've got a very big source of energy.

How much of that massive resource base could we usefully extract? Imagine that only a fraction of a percent comes out. It's still big. A tenth of a percent is 100,000 quads. You have access to a tremendous amount of stored energy. And assessment studies have shown that this is thousands of times in excess of the amount of energy we consume per-year in the country. The trick is to get it out of the ground economically and efficiently and to do it in an environmentally sustainable manner. That's what a lot of the field efforts have focused on. _TechReview

If you drill far enough down into the Earth, you will find hot rock. Circulating a heat exchange fluid into the rock allows you to utilise the heat to drive a heat engine to generate electric power. Using both the heat and the electricity obtained from below ground, life on planet Earth could be maintained under large domes for millions of years, even without the sun. Add the energy you can get from nuclear fission and fusion, and human civilisation could go on even longer.

Since the sun is likely to go on for another billion years or longer, what we are talking about is two things: 1. geothermal energy as supplementary, baseload energy for parts of the world where nuclear power is not practical or safe, and 2. human settlements on molten-core planets which are too far away from a star for conventional star-powered photosynthetic life cycles and atmospheric heating.

Geothermal is expensive, and is a low-grade form of energy. But it is 24 hour a day baseload energy which can also be load-following power. Enhanced geothermal requires deep drilling and regular maintenance. And there is the fear of earthquakes:

Using EGS, producers drill deeply into hot rocks and pump surface water to them. The heat is transferred to the water and it is pumped back to the surface with geothermal energy that is used in a standard geothermal power plant. Much heralded until recently, EGS began to garner controversy when its deep fracturing of geologic structures seemed to be associated with increased seismic activity, first in Basel, Switzerland, and later in California.

..."The thing is, you've got to address it," Gawell said. "If you've got major slip faults in the area, you don't do a project there. You simply stay away. When somebody permits a geothermal project in Basel, Switzerland, the site of the biggest earthquake in European history, you have to wonder whether they did any screening or thinking" beforehand. _GreentechMedia

But think about it: Earthquakes come from faultlines where plates are pushing and sliding against each other. The best way to prevent a large earthquake is to trigger multiple small earthquakes to relieve the pressure that is building over time.

The hysteria over EGS-caused mini-quakes is misplaced. The danger comes from not relieving the pressure.

And so massive quantities of baseload energy goes untapped, because for now it is cheaper to use other forms of energy -- such as coal, gas, oil, hydro. How does geothermal compare to wind?

According to Tantoco, the company may spend as much as $3.5 million to produce a megawatt of geothermal power through its greenfield facilities, and about $2.5 million per megawatt for its wind power project. [EDC Philippines] _BusinessInquirer

But geothermal is 24 hour baseload and potentially load-following power. Wind power is intermittent, with a capacity factor of 0.3 or less -- and essentially unpredictable! Wind machines often break down within 5 to 10 years, whereas geothermal can last for several decades or longer.

No one is saying that geothermal is better than small modular nuclear reactors in terms of portability, versatility, efficiency, or affordability. But for demographic reasons, some parts of the world are simply not safe places to put nuclear plants -- even SMRs. If geothermal energy is available, it represents a better alternative, for those particular places.

LS9 Transplants Bacterial Genes to Produce Diesel from Sugars

South San Francisco biotech company LS9 has genetically programmed E. Coli with genes from cyanobateria, to produce long chain hydrocarbons.

The LS9 researchers discovered the genes involved by comparing the genomes of 10 strains of cyanobacteria (also called blue-green algae) that naturally produce alkanes with a very similar strain that produces no alkanes. They identified 20 genes that the alkane-producing strains had but that the non-alkane-producing strain lacked. From there, the researchers narrowed down the possibilities until they identified the genes and enzymes necessary for alkane production. They confirmed their discovery by incorporating the genes into E. coli and measuring the alkanes that the bacteria subsequently made. The bacteria secrete the alkanes, which can then by easily collected and used as a fuel.

Organisms make alkanes via a complex process that produces fatty acids from carbon dioxide or sugars. The fatty acids are then converted by the organisms to an aldehyde that includes a carbon atom bonded to an oxygen atom (together they create what's called a carbonyl group). The enzyme aldehyde decarbonylase helps remove this group to form a chain of hydrogen and carbon atoms--the hydrocarbon. The natural process produces a collection of hydrocarbons of various lengths that are comparable to the hydrocarbon molecules in diesel. _TechnologyReview

Such artificially programmed bacteria (and algae) will provide the most efficient means of converting CO2 directly to hydrocarbons. Humans will find it difficult to create economical processes to make long chain alkanes from CO2, using the low levels of CO2 found in the atmosphere (0.04%).
More on LS9 from GCC:

Researchers at LS9 have discovered an alkane biosynthesis pathway in cyanobacteria; i.e., a metabolic pathway that produces alkanes—the major hydrocarbon constituents of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel—in a direct, simple conversion from sugar.

When the newly identified alkane operon is expressed in E.coli, the bacteria produce and secrete C13 to C17 mixtures of alkanes and alkenes. This discovery is the first description of the genes responsible for alkane biosynthesis and the first example of a single step conversion of sugar to fuel-grade alkanes by an engineered microorganism. A paper on the work was published in the 30 July issue of the journal Science.

Alkanes are naturally produced by diverse species, but the genetics and biochemistry behind this biology have not been well generally well understood. The LS9 team looked into the genomes of cyanobacteria that produce alkanes in nature, evaluating many and identifying one that was not capable of producing alkanes, said Andreas Schirmer, Associate Director of Metabolic Engineering at LS9, and lead author on the paper. By comparing the genome sequences of the alkane producing and non-producing organisms, LS9 was able to identify the responsible genes. _GCC

By taking the genes from one species of bacteria and transplanting them into E. Coli, the scientists are making use of a bacterial production platform (E. Coli) which is quite familiar to biotechnologists, pharmacologists, and industrial microbiologists. Expect much more of this genetic "mixing and matching" to create optimal microbial production platforms.

Gevo Turning Cellulose into Fuels, Plastics, Clothing, etc.

GCC
Renewable chemicals company Gevo is now producing a range of products from biomass cellulose-derived sugars. These products include fuels usable as gasoline and diesel replacements, as well as jet fuel. Other high value products from biomass include plastics and clothing fiber materials. Gevo first ferments isobutanol from biomass (cellulose-derived sugars), then converts the isobutanol to other high value materials.

Gevo uses synthetic biology and metabolic engineering to develop biocatalysts (fermentation organisms) to make only isobutanol via fermentation at high concentrations—i.e., without the typical expression co-products. The initial generation biocatalyst operates on fermentable sugars from grain crops, sugar cane and sugar beets. Gevo has already produced renewable gasoline and jet fuel that meet or exceed all ASTM specifications.

The company is now developing a new generation of biocatalysts that can use the mixed sugars from biomass to produce cellulosic isobutanol.

To operate its fermentation at optimum conditions for the organism, and within the process conditions found in ethanol plants, Gevo developed a novel separation technology. The solution uses a process innovation for continuous separation of the isobutanol—which in high concentrations inhibits the growth of microorganisms—as it is produced.

...What’s new is the cost-effective production and purification of isobutanol from biomass. Gevo projects that the cash operating cost for its hydrocarbon fuel is competitive with $65 per barrel crude oil (without incentives).

Isobutanol can also be used directly as a gasoline blendstock and as a building block in the production of hydrocarbons found in petroleum-derived gasoline, jet and diesel fuels. _GCC

As Gevo improves its yields at all stages of its processes, the economics of Gevo's potential operations should become more clear. Biomass is not energy-dense, which means that pre-processing stages will need to be made cheap, light, and portable so as to go where the biomass is -- for purposes of densification of the energy resource. That will involve many small, local scale pre-processing plants -- some of them portable by truck or rail.

Preliminary products will then be shipped or piped to several regional processing plants for conversion into isobutanol and higher value products. A few more central plants may exist for more complex conversions and synthesis -- or chemical intermediates would be sold in bulk to other companies for final conversion in some special cases.

It is unclear how far into industrial production Gevo wants to go. The market exists for very large numbers of local pre-processing plants, and a significant number of regional processing plants.

Biomass can be derived from agricultural and forestry waste, and dedicated energy crops and fast growing trees. But the best prospect for high yield biomass at this time is micro-algae. Most of the problems preventing economic production of biodiesel from algae are not applicable to Gevo's process using algal biomass -- not algal oils.

The

Matt Simmons Has Had Quite a Ride

Oil and gas industry investment banker, Matt Simmons, has achieved success and acclaim in a second career as a "peak oil prophet."  Mr. Simmons is famous for claiming that Saudi oil fields are in rapid decline, and that world oil production peaked in 2005.

During the recent BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Mr. Simmons was in great demand as an oil industry insider and expert.   But storm clouds are beginning to form over the reputation of Simmons as someone whose judgment and veracity can be counted on.  Strangely enough, some of the mumblings of mutiny are arising from the peak oil ranks themselves.

Peak oiler, energy blogger, and chemical engineer Robert Rapier has published a series of critical evaluations of Simmons' work, the most recent of which was published -- of all places (!) -- in The Oil Drum website. The TOD article takes a close look at some of Simmons' recent statements about the oil spill in the Gulf. A careful reader will come away with the clear conclusion that Simmons' credibility is in tatters, blowing in the breeze. Only the truest of Simmons true believers in TOD comments persists in defending the recent incredible and fantastic statements that Simmons had made to the press.

But is this a new phenomenon, or has Simmons always been this way? Some of the questions relating to Simmons' credibility go all the way back to his magnum opus, Twilight in the Desert.

Matt Simmons has been wrong about virtually every important trend he has tried to call.

He was wrong in his shrill predictions about US gas "going over a cliff". He predicted a catastrophic drop in US natural gas production by summer 2005. That never transpired, and in summer 2008 US gas production is *rising* at a rapid clip. Details

He also predicted a near term collapse in Saudi oil production (Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock) which never transpired. The book was released in June 2005, and in the last 18 months, Saudi crude+condensate production has steadily risen, reaching a high of 9,700mbd in July 2008 (EIA stats, Table 1.1c). Historically, that's an extremely high level. The last time Saudi crude+condensate production was that high was almost 30 years ago, in October 1981 (see EIA, 2008 Monthly Energy Review, Table 11.1a Link).

Simmons staked his reputation on the claim that Saudi Production was going to collapse, and it did exactly the opposite. No wonder he's having a nervous breakdown and promoting bizarre schemes like mowing the bottom of the ocean with "underwater lawnmowers":

“Call it seaweed, if you want,” Simmons said. Whatever you call it, Simmons said the world must start harvesting this micro algae using what he called “underwater lawnmowers.”

Simmons acknowledged that any plan for large scale harvesting of micro algae likely would be strongly opposed by environmentalists. His blunt message to them: "Get over it. We’ve already destroyed the fish stock."Source

Simmons' consistent view has always been that high prices will not temper demand, that demand will continue to follow optimistic IEA forecasts even if supply massively undershoots that level (economic gobbledygook like "In seventeen years the world’s demand for oil may well be more than 50 percent greater than it is today, while production capacity may well sink to 1985 levels."Source), and that prices are going to go through the roof. Which, of course, is completely at odds with the actual situation of falling demand and prices. The man is overwrought and out of touch: on Sept. 22, 2008, as the price of oil was nosediving to $33, his comment was: "There really is no roof on oil prices at this point."Source_PeakOilDebunked

Petroleum is a finite resource. But if you want to build a career (even a second career) out of claims that "it is all downhill from here," you need to substantiate your claims much better than Mr. Simmons has been able to do. His recent spouting off about the Gulf Macondo oil spill tells us plainly that his judgment is not trustworthy. Which means that Mr. Simmons is even more obligated to provide factual substantiation to even the least of his claims and predictions.

Readers and administrators of The Oil Drum website generally seem to feel that Simmons should be referred to with respect in every instance -- as if Simmons had recently died, deserving the respect of the dead. But perhaps it is only Mr. Simmons' reputation that is dying, misstatement by misstatement, failed prognostication by failed prognostication.

Update: 31July2010 -- I just remembered a pertinent post by Robert Rapier from early January of this year:

The Saudis had production back above 9 million bpd by December 2007, and by July 2008 they had production at 9.7 million bpd – the highest level in almost 30 years (and without the aid of some of the major new projects that were expected to bump production a little). Their production then pulled back after prices collapsed. Just the fact that production flat-lined for 7 months with no new major projects coming on says without a doubt they were sitting on spare production when I was arguing that they were. If they hadn’t been, they would have declined a bit each month and could have only reversed that by bringing new projects online.

One argument that many people made for a permanent decline was that if Saudi had spare production they would have brought it online in 2006-2007 as prices climbed. As I replied at the time “Not if inventories are full.” (Of course Saudi production rose with the price of oil in 2008, and hit 9.7 million bpd in the same month that oil prices hit $147).

Robert provides a great deal more of interest to observers of peak oil in that brief article. Smart people will read it and take heed. Dull-witted disciples of the peak oil gurus will avoid Robert's reasoning for the head-pounding cognitive dissonance it would have provoked.

Big Solar: Not Ready for Prime Time

OECD via Rod Adams
JournoLists from the mainstream media have been credulous cheerleaders for the wind and solar industries -- and for the faux environmental movement in general. Rod Adams takes the New York Times to task for a typical example of atrocious journoLism on solar energy.

...a normally credible news source, the New York Times, apparently did not bother to more fully investigate the credibility of the "study" to find out that it is just a paper that was commissioned by an organization that is dedicated to a well publicized agenda. On July 26, 2010, on the front page of the New York Times business section, there was a Special Report: Energy titled Nuclear Energy Loses Cost Advantage written by Diana S. Powers whose conclusions about electricity cost comparisons between nuclear and solar were entirely based on the Blackburn and Cunningham paper and its sources. The writer did not check on the academic credentials of the paper's authors, check to see if it had been peer reviewed, or question whether or not it was backed up by independent work by anyone else. She quite possibly did not even read the entire paper to understand the calculations used to draw the pretty graph. The editor allotted a good deal of valuable space for this poorly researched work.
...
The paper is seductively titled Solar and Nuclear Costs — The Historic Crossover: Solar Energy is Now the Better Buy. The paper's cover has a dramatic and colorful graph that shows ever increasing costs for nuclear and ever decreasing costs for solar. The lines cross in 2010. (I will explain my use of the word "seductive".)

For their nuclear power cost projections, the professor emeritus and his grad student relied on a 2009 cost projection paper written by a lone researcher named Mark Cooper, whose current employment is described as "Senior Research Fellow for Economic Analysis" for the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment. His brief biography states that he has a "PhD from Yale" but it does not specify his field of study. It indicates he is an "acivist/advocate" with a rather wide range of interest areas including telecommunications regulations and energy consumer issues.

The paper ignores all other cost projections for nuclear. Some of the previous work on this topic that the professor and his graduate student ignored includes the following:

• A 2003 study conducted by a multidisciplinary team at MIT titled The Future of Nuclear Power which was updated with new data in 2009.
• A 2005 report by the World Nuclear Association titled The New Economics of Nuclear Power
• A 2010 OECD study titled Projected Costs of Generating Electricity: 2010 Edition

 _RodAdams

Depleted Cranium takes a careful look at a new solar thermal plant in Sicily, and decides that the plant provides only "piddling" energy for the enormous cost of investment, land, and resources.

The actual plant is enormous. It contains over three miles of primary loop pipeline, occupies over thirty thousand square meters and costs sixty million euro just to build (never mind the operating cost of keeping those mirrors shiny and the pipes free of leaks and clogs.) For this enormous price the plant generates five megawatts.

Of course, that’s not why the plant is there. It makes a perfect window dressing for the much much smaller, yet much much more powerful gas-fired power plant that is located at the same site. Officials like to talk about how the solar collectors are “integrated” into the gas fired power system and allow for less gas usage, as some kind of transition. They don’t mention that the gas fired power plant is 752 megawatts, a lot more than the five megawatts of the solar power station. But hey, with all the glare of those solar collectors, you might not even notice the big gas burner next-door, right?

One other thing that should be noted: the plant is rated at five megawatts, but that doesn’t mean it actually generates that much power.

The “five megawatt” number is a reference to the peak capacity of the power station, which is much much different than its true output. During the mid day, on a perfectly clear sunny summer day, when all systems are functioning at their optimal performance, it may get up to five megawatts. However, it will be lower much more often.

To get a better idea of what this plant is actually supposed to produce, or at least what the estimates of the builder are, we need to figure out what the average power output is. According to one site, the plant is supposed to produce “9 million kilowatt hours a year.” That’s nine thousand megawatt hours. There are 8,760 hours in a year (non leap-year), so as it turns out, the actual output of the plant averages just a little over one megawatt. This is, of course, assuming the estimates are correct and not more rosy than the reality of things. _DepletedCranium

There are plenty of situations where off-grid solar energy makes a great deal of sense. Solar is more predictable than wind, but as an expensive and intermittent source it will not win any prizes from utility grid managers.

The gullibility and ignorance with which solar (and wind) energy projects are pursued by journoLists, public officials, political activists, and faux environmental lobbies is a sad testimony to modern education and child-raising practises. But the world is what it is and we must do with it what we can.

Dian Chu Predicts a New Oil Peak due to Shale Oil

Economic forecaster Dian Chu gives a presentation on the future of shale energy in the US.

Large deposits of gas and oil in US onshore shale formations are forming the foundation for a new fossil fuel energy rush inside the continental US.

Thanks to the Obama moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, oil producers and investors are looking toward fossil fuel deposits in shale formations from North Dakota to Texas to Pennsylvania.

Technological advances in exploration, recovery, production, and refinement of unconventional fossil fuels will only get better and more economical with time.

New timeline for Peak Oil? Sometime after the year 2100.

Of course by then, advanced fission and fusion will provide most of the world's electricity, and microbial producers will provide the bulk of the world's transportation fuels, high value chemicals, plastics, and animal feeds -- using everything from biomass to solid waste to liquid waste as feedstocks.

More Scientific Interest in Catching and Using CO2

Brian Westenhaus takes a look at a University of Cincinnati group that aims to turn CO2 into methanol (CH4) using a low temperature catalytic process.

The new paper published June 14th in the American Chemical Society journal Energy & Fuels reports a highly efficient nickel system for the catalytic hydroboration of CO2 to methoxyboryl species using a simple borane. The reactions operate at room temperature with turnover frequencies [495 h-1 based on B-H] at least 1 order of magnitude higher than those of the related reactions.

The improvement comes from the recent development of frustrated Lewis acid-base pair chemistry, which has led to alternative strategies for the reduction of CO2 to the methoxide level given either H2 or H3NBH3 9 as a hydrogen source.

The mechanism involves a nickel formate, formaldehyde, and a nickel methoxide as different reduced stages for the CO2. The reaction may also be catalyzed by an air-stable nickel formate.

_NewEnergyandFuel

An enzymatic approach to capturing CO2 for re-use comes from Codexis, and involves genetically modified enzymes made especially to withstand the higher temperatures involved. The new enzymes are said to be 100 times as efficient at CO2 capture as the standard solvent approach.

This recent scientific groundswell of interest in capturing CO2 and turning it back into fuels was spurred by this Sandia project of turning CO2 plus sunlight into fuels. It sounds almost poetic, even though we know that nuclear energy is far more reliable and potentially plentiful in concentrated form than solar energy.

Regardless, the human imagination has been unleashed in an attempt to solve a perceived problem -- rather than to merely whine about the perception. It will be fascinating to watch and see what problem-solving human minds can devise.

Update 27July2010: DOE to Award $106M to Six CO2 Conversion Projects; $156M in Matching Private Funding

Phycal, LLC (Highland Heights, OH) Phycal will complete development of an integrated system designed to produce liquid biocrude fuel from microalgae cultivated with captured CO2. The algal biocrude can be blended with other fuels for power generation or processed into a variety of renewable drop-in replacement fuels such as jet fuel and biodiesel. Phycal will design, build, and operate a CO2-to-algae-to-biofuels facility at a nominal thirty acre site in Central O’ahu (near Wahiawa and Kapolei), Hawaii. Hawaii Electric Company will qualify the biocrude for boiler use, and Tesoro will supply CO2 and evaluate fuel products. (DOE Share: $24,243,509)

Touchstone Research Laboratory Ltd. (Triadelphia, WV) This project will pilot-test an open-pond algae production technology that can capture at least 60% of flue gas CO2 from an industrial coal-fired source to produce biofuel and other high value co-products. A novel phase change material incorporated in Touchstone’s technology will cover the algae pond surface to regulate daily temperature, reduce evaporation, and control the infiltration of invasive species. Lipids extracted from harvested algae will be converted to a bio-fuel, and an anaerobic digestion process will be developed and tested for converting residual biomass into methane. The host site for the pilot project is Cedar Lane Farms in Wooster, Ohio. (DOE Share: $6,239,542)

Skyonic Corporation (Austin, TX) Skyonic Corporation will continue the development of SkyMine mineralization technology-a potential replacement for existing scrubber technology. The SkyMine process transforms CO2 into solid carbonate and/or bicarbonate materials while also removing sulfur oxides, nitrogen dioxide, mercury and other heavy metals from flue gas streams of industrial processes. Solid carbonates are ideal for long-term, safe aboveground storage without pipelines, subterranean injection, or concern about CO2 re-release to the atmosphere. The project team plans to process CO2-laden flue gas from a Capital Aggregates, Ltd. cement manufacturing plant in San Antonio, Texas. (DOE Share: $25,000,000)

Calera Corporation (Los Gatos, CA) Calera Corporation is developing a process that directly mineralizes CO2 in flue gas to carbonates that can be converted into useful construction materials. An existing CO2 absorption facility for the project is operational at Moss Landing, Calif., for capture and mineralization. The project team will complete the detailed design, construction, and operation of a building material production system that at smaller scales has produced carbonate-containing aggregates suitable as construction fill or partial feedstock for use at cement production facilities. The building material production system will ultimately be integrated with the absorption facility to demonstrate viable process operation at a significant scale. (DOE Share: $19,895,553)

Novomer Inc. (Ithaca, NY) Teaming with Albemarle Corporation and the Eastman Kodak Co., Novomer will develop a process for converting waste CO2 into a number of polycarbonate products (plastics) for use in the packaging industry. Novomer’s novel catalyst technology enables CO2 to react with petrochemical epoxides to create a family of thermoplastic polymers that are up to 50% by weight CO2. The project has the potential to convert CO2 from an industrial waste stream into a lasting material that can be used in the manufacture of bottles, films, laminates, coatings on food and beverage cans, and in other wood and metal surface applications. Novomer has secured site commitments in Rochester, NY, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Orangeburg, SC and Ithaca, NY where Phase 2 work will be performed. (DOE Share: $18,417,989)

Alcoa, Inc. (Alcoa Center, PA) Alcoa’s pilot-scale process will demonstrate the high efficiency conversion of flue gas CO2 into soluble bicarbonate and carbonate using an in-duct scrubber system featuring an enzyme catalyst. The bicarbonate/carbonate scrubber blow down can be sequestered as solid mineral carbonates after reacting with alkaline clay, a by-product of aluminum refining. The carbonate product can be utilized as construction fill material, soil amendments, and green fertilizer. Alcoa will demonstrate and optimize the process at their Point Comfort, Texas aluminum refining plant. (DOE Share: $11,999,359)

11th Carnival of Nuclear Energy at NextBigFuture

Brian Wang presents 10 outstanding nuclear blog entries at the 11th Carnival of Nuclear Energy, hosted at NextBigFuture. Here is a sampling:

3. Atomic Rod (Rod Adams) has Proving a Negative - Why Modern Used Nuclear Fuel Cannot Be Used to Make a Weapon

My position is that there is no way for an ad hoc group of terrorists or nefarious state actors to build a weapon out of used commercialnuclear fuel. The challenge is that I have a self-appointed task of proving a negative when the positive assertion has been well publicized and firmly established as a "fact" by people with impressive credentials. I also have to figure out how to make this argument without access to technical details that remain classified. Finally, I have to do it in a way that does not require readers to work their way through the excellent, but lengthy explanation provided by Why You Can’t Build a Bomb From Spent Fuel (depleted cranium) orAlexander de Volpi's detailed Knol titled NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROLIFERATION: Controversy About Demilitarizing Plutonium.

4. Nuclear green has the Fuji Molten Salt Project Seeking $300 Million in Funding for Thorium Molten Salt Reactor Development.

On July 7, 2010 Professor Kazuo Furukawa, the head of the NPO "International Thorium and Molten-Salt Forum" has announced that a new company which aims to produce a commercially viable thorium nuclear power generation was established. The goal is to make a thorium nuclear power generator capable of producing 10,000 kilowatts and 20,000 kilowatts of electricity for the next five to ten years, respectively.

The company which was established in June is called, "International Thorium Energy & Molten-Salt Technology Inc. (IThEMS)." Its office is in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo (tel. no. +81-3-3239-2595) with a capitalization of 2 million Japanese yen*. Its president is Mr. Keishiro Fukushima. A total of 300 million US dollars of capital coming from domestic and international companies and investors will be procured in order to produce a small-scale electric generator producing 10,000 kilowatts of electricity within five years.

This generation technology utilizes and involves fluoridized molten-salt to dissolve fluoridized thorium and other materials as liquid fuel.

.....

10. Rod Adams had an article published on the oil drum "Possibilities for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors?". There are over 450 comments on this article, including comments by the author of this article under the alias of advancednano. In the comments, I also have another set of bets with Dittmar. This time on Kazakhstan uranium production in 2010 and 2011.

Go to NextBigFuture for the entire carnival

More from Charles Barton on Gen IV small reactors we might be building very soon:

The Babcock & Wilcox mPower Reactor actually sets a benchmark for Generation IV reactors. Generation IV reactors will need to compete with the mPower and similar reactors both in capital costs and in operational and maintenance costs.

The ARC-100 reactor project in the main conforms to the to the practical approach. Its design tracks closely with the design of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II as it evolved into an Integral Fast Reactor prototype. The ARC-100 will be a more powerful reactor than the EBR-11, but not by an problematic extent. Current thinking suggests that reactors capable of generating 100 MWe represent a convergence point between the maximum financial benefit of factory reactor production, and grid usefulness. Smaller reactors because they produce less electricity, may represent less attractive investments for utilities seeking to replace fossil fuel generation sources, while larger reactors may demand far more expensive field construction. Thus the ARC-100 with an electrical output of 100 MW, is size competitive with the 125 MW mPower Reactor. _Much more with links at NuclearGreen

Safe, abundant, clean nuclear fission will provide the foundation for a successful transition from a fossil fuel economy to a sustainable energy economy. It is the key to long-term success in breaking free from the energy starvation, dieoff.org straitjacket that faux environmentaist lefty Luddites are attempting to wrap around the planet.

Splitting CO2 for Fuel and Climate?

* 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) of this system would extract the excess CO2 within ten years
_NextBigFuture

A team of scientists at George Washington University and Howard University have devised a theoretical means of splitting CO2, turning the demon gas into either solid carbon or into carbon monoxide, CO. The CO could be used to generate hydrocarbon fuels with the aid of hydrogen -- a by-product of their theoretical process "STEP" (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo).

By using the sun's visible light and heat to power an electrolysis cell that captures and converts carbon dioxide from the air, a new technique could impressively clean the atmosphere and produce fuel feedstock at the same time. The key advantage of the new solar carbon capture process is that it simultaneously uses the solar visible and solar thermal components, whereas the latter is usually regarded as detrimental due to the degradation that heat causes to photovoltaic materials. However, the new method uses the sun’s heat to convert more solar energy into carbon than either photovoltaic or solar thermal processes alone.

...the process uses visible sunlight to power an electrolysis cell for splitting carbon dioxide, and also uses solar thermal energy to heat the cell in order to decrease the energy required for this conversion process. The electrolysis cell splits carbon dioxide into either solid carbon (when the reaction occurs at temperatures between 750°C and 850°C) or carbon monoxide (when the reaction occurs at temperatures above 950°C). These kinds of temperatures are much higher than those typically used for carbon-splitting electrolysis reactions (e.g., 25°C), but the advantage of reactions at higher temperatures is that they require less energy to power the reaction than at lower temperatures.

... The experiments in this study showed that the technique could capture carbon dioxide and convert it into carbon with a solar efficiency from 34% to 50%, depending on the thermal component. While carbon could be stored, the production of carbon monoxide could later be used to synthesize jet, kerosene, and diesel fuels, with the help of hydrogen generated by STEP water splitting._Physorg_via_BrianWang

If humans develop the ability to control the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere through technological means, there would be little reason for the widespread hysteria which is seen in the UN, the EU, and in the Obama Pelosi regime. Likewise, as humans develop better technological methods of weather control -- controlling solar insolation, cloud formation, and precipitation -- the modern over-hyped concern about the use of fossil fuels should eventually subside.

The topmost graphic demonstrates the historically very-low levels of atmospheric CO2 found in our current atmosphere. Clearly the biosphere of Earth evolved under generally much higher levels of CO2. Modern high-tech greenhouses use expensive CO2 generators to boost the levels of CO2 to up to 3 X atmospheric levels -- for more optimal growth of a wide variety of plant life.

The modern obsession with "pre-industrial levels of CO2" displays a profound ignorance of this planet's atmospheric and biological history, as the graphic above demonstrates. Closer inspection of the motives of the leaders of the carbon hysteria orthodoxy demonstrates monetary payoffs via carbon trading, international carbon ransom payments, and other economic maneuvers of questionable legality and wisdom.

It is a good idea to develop the means to control basic atmospheric parameters, in order to provide for rapid recovery from unanticipated geologic or extraterrestrial events. Anyone who has looked at the details of Earth's carbon cycle intelligently and critically will not be alarmed at anthropogenic use of carbon. But the universe holds many surprises for a young race of slightly evolved apes, and it does not hurt to be prepared for as many of those surprises as we can anticipate -- if the results are potentially severe.

Previously published at Al Fin

More: We need all the fossil fuels we have in order to transition into a cleaner, more abundant, and more sustainable energy future. If we cut ourselves off at the neck now (via Obama Pelosi style energy starvation) we will not be able to develop the advanced technologies that will allow us to spread the miracle of Earth's ecosystems through the solar system and beyond. If we follow the political scams that are making the faux environmental movement wealthy and powerful, we may as well call it quits as a species and a planet. Because sooner or later something devastating is going to happen to this planet -- either via innate geological processes, or via an extraterrestrial event. If we follow the witless way of Greenpeace, WWF, Sierra Club, etc. that will be the end, because we will have abandoned technology and space in order to "save the planet." But what we will have actually done, is to allow the only known source of life and intelligence in the universe to die without a struggle. That is not only stupid, but it is cowardly. Do we really want to teach our children to be stupid cowards?