Biomass to Gasoline at Costs of $1.95 / Gallon?

GCC
The US DOE National Renewable Energy Lab is reporting that a biomass-to-gasoline process utilising gasification with methanol as an intermediate, could be as economical as current bio-ethanol production.

A new report from the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) concludes that gasoline produced via the methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) route (earlier post) using syngas from a 2,000 dry metric tonne/day (2,205 US ton/day) biomass-fed facility could have a plant gate price (PGP) of $1.95/gallon US ($0.52/liter).

This is a gallon ethanol equivalent on an energy basis (gee) price of $1.39/gallon ($0.37/liter). (Gasoline has a higher energy content than ethanol.) In comparison, based on analysis work completed at NREL, the predicted PGP for ethanol produced via the thermochemical and biochemical pathways are $1.57 per gallon ($0.41 per liter) and $1.49 per gallon ($0.39 per liter), respectively.

...the results from this preliminary evaluation indicate great potential for producing gasoline from biomass via thermochemical biomass conversion to syngas and the MTG process, and thus warrant a more detailed study. Future work areas of interest include obtaining better process information on the MTG section of the plant, especially equipment and operating costs; increasing the heat integration throughout the process; scale-up of the MTG fluidized bed reactor; testing the MTG reactor and catalyst with methanol from biomass-derived syngas; testing of the MTG fluidized bed reactor at higher pressure; and evaluating the possibility of selling raw MTG gasoline and refining it in an existing refinery.

—Phillips et al.

_More at GCC with links

The reason that Al Fin Energy puts so much focus on liquid biofuels, is because renewable liquid fuels will eventually place a price ceiling on petroleum fuels. Biomass to liquids (BTL) is a renewable process which can continue as long as the sun shines and biomass is produced. The greatest threat to BTLs is a new ice age. The greatest promise for BTLs is a warming climate, with higher temperatures and CO2 levels.

It is important for forward looking individuals to understand how much profit to expect from investments in expensive fossil fuel ventures, before a dropping price ceiling makes them unprofitable. Peak oil doomer nonsense -- and associated expectations of eternal profits from petroleum and fossil fuels -- will only break your bank.

MIT's 5 MWt Research Nuclear Reactor Provides Valuable Service

A stone's throw from busy Massachusetts Avenue here is a large blue cylinder about the height of a two-story building, which houses the reactor, built with an attached research lab in 1958 at the dawn of the nuclear power industry.

The mission of the lab has changed over the years, most recently shifting its primary emphasis from medical research to experiments on new materials and fuels for nuclear power. Its director envisions that the lab's main product--streams of neutrons--could be used to advance microscopic imaging, giving researchers the ability to visualize the structure of proteins or the inside of complex machines. _CNet

Sitting in the middle of Cambridge, Mass., the 5 MWt MIT research reactor has been providing training and research for MIT students for decades. It is also utilised by Idaho National Labs for testing different nuclear fuels and new reactor materials. Such research & training reactors are invaluable to the future of intelligent nuclear power.

In the early days of the 1950s, the research was quite basic: engineers needed to better understand nuclear fission, or splitting atoms, to release heat in a controlled way. The center has since done research in many areas, including semiconductors, and working for utilities seeking better power plant design.

In the 1990s, the lab did quite a bit of work on boron neutron capture therapy, where cancer patients would sit in a room next to one of the beam ports and receive a dose of radiation. Patients would take a treatment that includes boron, which interacts with the neutron beam, releasing enough energy to kill cancer cells.

Fitting in and looking ahead
Now, one of the areas that the lab is focused on is in-core experiments, something that's very specialized and requires specific engineering expertise, according to Lin-wen Hu, the associate director of research development. While some university research nuclear reactors in the U.S. shut down because of lack of funding in the 1990s, there is now more research money available from the Department of Energy, she added.

Working with the Idaho National Laboratory, the research reactor is used to expose different materials and fuels to the radiation of an actual core. Although the MIT research reactor core operates at only 50 degrees Celsius, researchers can insert a loop, or tube, that's about two inches in diameter into the core and control the heat and pressure for experiments, Hu explained.

...MIT has committed to changing by 2015 to a different fuel type now being developed that has a lower concentration of enriched uranium, making it harder to convert to a bomb, said Thomas Newton, the associate director of engineering. It's taking years because the fuel and fuel casing, or cladding, needs to be tested for durability and ability to withstand conditions in the core, he said. _CNet

As you can imagine, Cambridge is packed with lefty-Luddite anti-nuclear extremists, who never met a neutron they did not despise. Such is the prestige of the MIT brand, that the Luddites of Cambridge have been unable to shut down the reactor over the past several decades of leftist upheaval and pseudo-intellectual rioting.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, local politicians are banding together in suppport of small modular reactors (SMRs), in preparation for April's SMR conference in Columbia, SC.

Given the fat & lazy attitude of US President Obama's Nuclear Regulatory Commission, SMRs will need all the political support they can get, to get past the bureaucratic obstacles and booby-traps placed in their way by a corrupt federal bureaucracy, and a political climate of energy starvation prevalent in the US executive branch currently.

Growing Boom in Sub-Salt and Unconventional Oil Reservoirs

You can call it subsalt exploration, presalt exploration or whatever makes you happy.

Just don’t forget to call exploration beneath salt bodies a big deal.

These plays are not new, yet the announcement of the giant Petrobras-operated Tupi field presalt oil discovery in 2006 offshore Brazil in the Santos Basin triggered major excitement in the E&P community and elsewhere. _AAPG.org

AAPG.org
It seems that these finds are just getting started -- and are putting Brazil on the "big-oil" map big time.

Brazil has a sunken treasure off its shores… though not the type Jack Sparrow [That's Captain Jack Sparrow to you!] might seek.

Instead, it is stashed beneath miles of water, rock and layers of salt beneath the ocean’s floor. And these so-called “pre-salt” oil fields make for the biggest oil discovery in the Americas since the 1970s.

Brazil’s oil regulator estimates they contain about 50 billion barrels of oil equivalent. That’s more than enough to turn Brazil into one of the world’s top oil producers in this upcoming decade. _InvestmentU

As you know, Brazil's offshore oil riches derive from vast fields of algae that have been well-fed by nutrients from the Amazon for many tens of millions of years. One might expect similar rich fields in the Gulf of Mexico, similarly fed by the Mississippi for many tens of millions of years. A lot of drillers happen to be chomping at the bit for the lead-footed (and perhaps lead-poisoned) Obama regime to lift its energy-starvation policies so that they can go after those rich fields.

McMoran Exploration (MMR) remains convinced that there are still good ultra-deep oil and gas prospects at shallow depths in the Gulf of Mexico. That exploration is still in its infancy, though, and it’s far from clear that these high-risk, sub-salt reserves can ultimately be recovered at economically attractive costs.

...Simply put, management believes companies like Exxon just didn’t dig deep enough. McMoran’s drilling strategy is focused on extracting reserves thought to exist below the “salt weld” — specifically, hydrocarbon-bearing sands in the “deep gas plays” (depths of 15,000 to 25,000 feet) and “ultra-deep gas plays” below 25,000 feet. _bnet.com

Given the geologic history of the region, such deep finds are not beyond reason. But since the Obama administration is dragging its feet on offshore drilling, that puts more pressure on unconventional wells to produce. And these wells appear to be more than up to the challenge.

...analysts predicted that the new activity, centered on so-called unconventional reservoirs, could greatly boost domestic oil production and help offset declining output in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.

These reservoirs, trapped in tight shale-rock formations, were deemed too hard to crack a decade ago. But in the past two years, breakthroughs in drilling technology, combined with high oil prices, have led companies like Chesapeake and Petrohawk to switch rigs formerly devoted to drilling for natural gas to emerging oilfields like the Eagle Ford shale formation, which stretches from the outskirts of Houston and San Antonio, Texas, south into Mexico.

...The Eagle Ford experienced a more-than-tenfold increase in the number of wells drilled last year over the 94 completed in 2009 and is slated for even more development this year. And the trend is playing out nationally, in formations such as the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the Monterey Shale in California.

Oil production from these sources is expected to reach 1.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from fewer than 500,000 barrels a day now, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. That is similar to the amount of crude produced in the offshore Gulf of Mexico, and the equivalent of nearly 30% of current U.S. production. That extra million barrels per day could help replace some expensive oil imports as conventional oilfields in the rest of the country decline. _Rigzone

Of course Obama's EPA is doing everything it can behind-the-scenes to shut down unconventional oil and gas. That is simply part and parcel of what it means to press a policy of "energy starvation." Just part of being lefty-Luddites no doubt. In the same way as they have shut down offshore oil drilling, the Obama regime is also overtly and covertly working on shutting down coal mines, coal power plants, Canadian oil sands, Green River oil shale, and is dragging its feet on certifying and permitting safe, new, reliable nuclear reactors.

The only kind of energy the Obama administration seems to like, is the unreliable and exorbitantly expensive kind -- solar and wind. It's not enough for Europe to be suffering for its foolish eyes-closed dive into the shallow rocky bottoms of wind and solar power. Obama simply must force the same suicidal approach on the US, while he still has the chance.

Unfortunately for the Obama-suicidal administration, the executive branch is not the only branch of the US government. And in the lower house of the legislative branch, a new pro-energy sheriff just rode into town ready to kick ass and take names. And if that sheriff fails to do the job, there are several others waiting and ready to get the backing of the US Tea Party factions, to do it for them.

There is plenty of oil, plenty of coal, plenty of gas, plenty of fissionable fuels . . . Unfortunately, there are also plenty of lefty-Luddites of the dieoff.orgy persuasion, who want to force their suicidal derangement onto everyone else. I suspect that enough people will wake up before that happens, who will show these Luddites to the edge of the cliff and invite them to take the first plunge.

A Promising Approach to Advanced Biofuels w/o Hydrotreatment

Finland's Neste Oil has proven its hydrotreatment approach to advanced biodiesel beyond question. But hydro-treating bio-oils is expensive, and more economical approaches are likely to find quicker and more widespread acceptance among advanced synthetic liquid fuels producers. Fortunately, a joint team from both China's Zhejiang University and the US University of Michigan, is hot on the trail of a process which achieves the advanced renewable synthesis of liquid hydrocarbons without requiring expensive hydrotreatment.

We report herein on the conversion of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids to alkanes over Pt/C in high-temperature water. The reactions were done with no added H2. The saturated fatty acids (stearic, palmitic, and lauric acid) gave the corresponding decarboxylation products (n-alkanes) with greater than 90 % selectivity, and the formation rates were independent of the fatty acid carbon number. The unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and linoleic acid) exhibited low selectivities to the decarboxylation product. Rather, the main pathway was hydrogenation to from stearic acid, the corresponding saturated fatty acid. This compound then underwent decarboxylation to form heptadecane. On the basis of these results, it appears that this reaction system promotes in situ H2 formation. This hydrothermal decarboxylation route represents a new path for using renewable resources to make molecules with value as liquid transportation fuels. _Wiley abstract_via_GCC

Here is more detail on the research from GreenCarCongress.com:

As described in the paper, the team of Jie Fu, Xiuyang Lu, and Phillip Savage converted five different fatty acids prevalent in nature—stearic, palmitic, lauric, oleic, and linoleic—to alkanes over a commercial 5% Pt/C catalyst in high-temperature water (330 °C). The reactions were done with no added hydrogen, in contrast to the processes that have adapted petroleum hydrotreatment technology to convert triglycerides and fatty acids into hydrocarbons.

Recent review articles have highlighted the significant research and development (R&D) efforts that have been devoted to using and adapting petroleum hydrotreatment technology to convert triglycerides and fatty acids into hydrocarbons...The high H2 consumption associated with these processes is their main drawback. H2 is not currently available in large quantities from renewable resources and H2 costs can be high. Moreover, H2 is made primarily from steam reforming of natural gas and CO2 is the byproduct. Thus, a near-term process for the production of fully renewable biofuels needs to operate without added H2.

—Fu et al.

_More at GCC

The GCC article goes on to describe the decarboxylation process adopted by the joint-university team, which produces CO2 as a byproduct of decarboxylation. The process is faster and perhaps more efficient using saturated fatty acides as feedstock, as opposed to unsaturated fatty acids. Oils such as palm oil, which are high in saturated palmitic acid, would seem to be ideal for the process.

If the world can ever pacify the carbon hysterics -- at least remove them from positions of high office and power -- the terrestrial and oceanic plants of the world can be freer to enjoy some extra free CO2, courtesy of the human animal.

North American Oil Boom Moves into Manitoba

"Peak oil in North America is likely not to be peak" given $90 per barrel prices and new technology that makes it easier to recover oil, he [Peter Tertzakian] said.

...Oil companies are adapting the same advanced drilling techniques that created the boom in shale gas: horizontal drilling and multistage hydraulic fracturing that allow them to break open the rocks at various points and capture the hydrocarbons trapped within.

The other key factor in the tight-oil boom is a high oil price, as North American crude is trading around $90 (U.S.) a barrel and international grades, near $100.

"High oil prices are definitely driving this thing," said Stephen Sonnenberg, a leading geologist at the Colorado School of Mines. "Gas prices are suppressed, oil prices are quite high and everybody is really excited about these tight oil plays." _Globe&Mail

The shale oil technology revolution is moving into Manitoba, boosting local economies there, just as it has in Alberta and Saskatchewan -- and in several US states as well.

In the Bakken formation, production is rising so fast there is no space in pipelines to bring the oil to market. Instead, it is being transported to refineries by rail and truck. Drilling companies have had to erect camps to house workers. _AP

Oil production is once again rising in North America -- despite the de facto Obama moratorium on offshore drilling.

Many informed energy experts believe that the US government under Obama has gotten itself far too involved in the energy picture -- to the point of instigating an underhanded form of "energy starvation."

The more the government gets involved in energy, the more expensive energy becomes and the less we produce here at home. The Department of Energy was created to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

...We have doubled imports since then. The constant drumbeat of "energy plans" pushed by politicians simply pick winners and losers in the energy business, rewarding political friends on both sides of the aisle. The less government is involved, the more consumers can make decisions for themselves. _MSNBC

Energy policies in Europe are even worse than in Obama's US. Big bets placed on wind and solar energy by European governments are beginning to hit their economies with a devastating back-bite. From the UK, to Italy, to Germany and Spain, to investors across the developed world, there is a dawning of awareness that neither wind nor solar are ready for prime time energy production. Such intermittent, unreliable, exorbitantly expensive, prone-to-failure energy sources never made sense for large scale on-grid production. Particularly when far more reliable nuclear reactor designs are available -- once Obama's fat and lazy-assed NRC gets around to certifying them.

The "energy crisis" is certainly more a failure of government than anything else, but there is another big problem feeding into the "crisis." A growing shortage of skilled manpower in the energy industries is a ticking timebomb for advanced industrial civilisations. The coming Idiocracy -- the dysgenic future trends of current demographics -- portends far greater problems for civilisation than any shortage of fuels or any possible hazards from marginally higher levels of the trace gas CO2 (only 0.04% of Earth's atmosphere).

Why Is China Trying to Disrupt Western Oil & Gas Production?

According to the report, the intruders used widely available attack methods known as SQL injection and spear phishing to compromise their targets. Once they gained access to computers on internal company networks, they would install remote administration software that gave them complete control of those systems. That made it possible for the intruders to search for documents as well as stage attacks on other computers connected to corporate networks.

In addition to their parallels to the Google attacks of last year, the intrusions resembled a Chinese-based electronic espionage network that was found in 2009 and named GhostNet. In that case, researchers at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto uncovered an elaborate network aimed at government computers as well as those of nongovernmental organizations like the office of the Dalai Lama. The researchers concluded that the control servers of the attack system were based on the island of Hainan, which is part of China. _NYT

It is bad enough that tin-pot oil dictatorships such as Venezuela and Russa systematically lure international oil&gas companies into partnerships -- only to nationalise all of the multinational's in-country assets. Over and over again. Now China has been caught red-handed attempting to use computer hacking tools to disrupt multinational oil & gas operations. What is in it for the Chinese?

At least five multinational oil and gas companies suffered computer network intrusions from a persistent group of computer hackers based in China, according to a report released Wednesday night by a Silicon Valley computer security firm.

...Operating from what was a base apparently in Beijing, the intruders established control servers in the United States and Netherlands to break into computers in Kazakhstan, Taiwan, Greece and the United States, according to a report, “Global Energy Cyberattacks: ‘Night Dragon.’ ”

The focus of the intrusions was on oil and gas field production systems as well as financial documents related to field exploration and bidding for new oil and gas leases, according to the report. The attackers also stole information related to industrial control systems, the researchers noted, but no efforts to tamper with these systems were observed.

McAfee executives declined to name the victim companies, citing nondisclosure agreements it signed before being hired to patch the vulnerabilities revealed by the intrusions. Last year, when Google announced that intellectual property had been stolen by Chinese intruders, it expressed frustration that while it had observed break-ins at a variety of other United States companies, virtually none of the other companies were willing to acknowledge that they had been compromised. _NYT

The opportunities for western oil&gas companies seem to be expanding almost exponentially, given new drilling and exploration techniques. Oil & gas production in the US and elsewhere around the world are set to rise as a result, with much growth in exploration and production sectors.

What can China expect to gain from disrupting western and multinational oil & gas enterprises? Is is nothing more than a show of force projection, far beyond Chinese borders? Is it a warning? Or is it rehearsal and preparation for a more integrated effort to disrupt western energy supplies and critical information systems?

China is known for its industrial sabotage, its product counterfeiting, its outright theft of technologies from partners, and its iron-fisted control over information sources and expression inside its borders. Is China experimenting with similar exertion of control over global information streamways, with a hoped-for domination over energy, financial, information, and political flow of data?

Clearly, with China one must never let down his guard.

Many Roads Lead to Biofuels and Bioenergy

More: Waste & garbage super-giant Waste Management has partnered with Genomatica to develop methods of creating high-value and basic chemicals from municipal waste -- via syngas. The "waste to energy and other valuable products" is a common theme in biofuels and bioenergy.

The simplest path to bioenergy from "biofuels" is the combustion of woody biomass to generate electricity. An Alabama sawmill intends to use waste sawdust and bark to generate 7 MW of power. The mill will sell excess production to the local utility.

The gasification of biomass to syngas allows for multiple uses -- including direct syngas combustion, the fermentation of the syngas to alcohols, or the catalytic production of advanced Fischer Tropsch fuels. A research team at the Key Laboratory of Renewable Energy and Gas Hydrate, Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has devised an improved method of catalytic steam gasification of biomass for production of synthetic fuels. The ever-present potential for altering the economic balance of biomass gasification to advanced catalytic fuels, keeps a lot of energy analysts vigilant and wary.

The anaerobic digestion of municipal waste and waste biomass is another fairly simple approach to the production of fuels -- often methane, or in the case of a new Vero, Florida plant, ethanol. The new Florida plant will use naturally occurring bacteria to ferment biomass-derived syngas anaerobically to ethanol.

New research suggests that a US farmer could fuel his equipment with biodiesel grown on between 5% and 7% of his acreage using canola or camelina. Here is an example of a farmer in Washington State who grows his own fuel.

Dry desert areas like US states Arizona or New Mexico could provide a perfect growing climate for algal fuels farming operations. Since such land is not desirable for ordinary food crops, most food-for-fuels agitators should be relatively unperturbed.

Advanced synthetic biology microbial fuels company LS9 has entered into its second business agreement with business giant Procter & Gamble, to provide the large company with renewable high value chemicals for its routine products and operations. This approach is a smart one for microbial fuels companies who wish to build profitable product lines, before trying to go head to head with petroleum fuels in the open market.

Seaweed -- or macro-algae -- is a prolific biomass crop, with 6 harvests a year and rapid growth. Since seaweed can be grown in salty or brackish water, it can greatly expand the growing area for biomass worldwide. A University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne has further altered the genome of the yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae to allow even faster and more efficient fermentation of galactose in seaweed to ethanol. Quite a number of clever means of growing seaweed using saltwater are being devised, which will make wide-scale growing of this biomass crop for fuels more practical.

The planet Earth is a biological world -- the only biological world we know. Plants and microbes have evolved many ways to take advantage of primary solar energy and secondary chemical energies. Smart humans should eventually learn how to work with such evolutionary traits -- tweaking them to help biology to provide humans with most of the liquid fuels and many of the materials and chemicals they need.

The zero sum, doomer mindset, which is so common among academics and activists, is more an impediment to an abundant future than almost anything else on Earth.

Update on Rossi's LENR and Chennai Cold Fusion Conference

Brian Westenhaus provides an updated look at Rossi's Nickel-Hydrogen low energy nuclear reaction project.

Rossi hasn’t been waiting around. As it sits reports are saying that one customer – a newly formed consortium of energy distributors – should exist in Greece, and two others in the United States. These customers will sell energy catalysts in Europe and the USA. It seems the Greek media knows the Rossi catalyser is going to affect their country.

Andrea Rossi, founder and chief technology officer at Leonardo Corporation, gets a royalty on sales. Sergio Focardi is being taken care of with a commercial agreement with Rossi.

At the core of this is a metal tube of 1-2 liters containing as yet unknown catalysts, to which approximately one gram of 99.999 percent pure nickel powder is introduced. It’s then pressurized with hydrogen to between 2 and 20 bar.

The contents are heated by an electrical resistance source at a power of about 1 kW, which is then lowered to about 700 W.

The reaction starts producing 10-12 kW of power, which in Bologna was used to heat water to 101º C. During the demonstration, 13 liters of water were vaporized in approximately one hour.

The reaction forms copper – according to Rossi, higher levels of copper than nickel have been detected after the reaction. _New Energy and Fuel

Reportedly, Rossi is beginning to manufacture the reactors in Miami Florida.

In Chennai India, the 16th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science this week produced a call for inter-disciplinary studies in "cold fusion."

Inaugurating the conference, Mustansir Barma, Director, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, called for a deeper engagement by the scientific community in the new area.

Pointing out that the “disparity of scales” in the postulation of a lower energy phenomenon driving a high energy reaction was at the heart of the problem in getting a wider acceptance, he said some of the questions that scientists need to find answers for were how condensed nuclei can influence nuclear physics and whether the phenomenon can influence nuclear properties.

Later, interacting with reporters, William Collis, US scientist, pointed out that the big difference with the new discipline of condensed matter nuclear was that it required very modest levels of investment. This has led to several small-scale individual and group research efforts across the world.

M. Srinivasan, chairman, ICCF organising committee, said interest was reviving in this discipline and the potential it seemed to hold even though the phenomena was not yet fully explained in terms of textbook physics.

US scientists David Nagel and Michael Melich said inter-disciplinary research was the only way forward to establish cold fusion as hard science. _TheHindu

Nuclear scientist M. Srinivasan stated from Chennai that scientists are now closer to solving the energy crisis, thanks to Rossi's and Focardi's work.

Speaking at a tutorial school on the theme, ‘Introduction to the Science of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions’, he said the recent development involved a nickel-hydrogen fusion reactor that could produce a few kilowatts of thermal energy . Its significance was that it watered down the conventional theory of relying on high temperatures for nuclear reactions. Low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) or cold fusion refers to nuclear fusion of atoms at conditions close to room temperature, in contrast to that of well-understood fusion reactions such as high-energy experiments.

India started research in this field in 1989, after scientists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons discovered the phenomenon of cold fusion in March 1989. However, research suffered a blow in mid-1990s due to lack of consensus among mainstream scientists and the US denunciation of it.

But now, the research has once again gained momentum. In fact Dr S Kailas, director of physics group on LENR at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, announced that the group wanted youth to start working from where the older generation has left. The tutorial - organised by Indian Physics Association, Federation of Science Clubs of Tamil Nadu and The Science Club of Chennai - saw the participation of a large number of students.

On the positives, Srinivasan said low energy reactors do not have to go critical and the coolant could be even water. No reports of significant levels of radioactivity are associated with them either. When compared to a normal reactor, it does not use uranium, plutonium or tritium.

Research professor at the LENR laboratory of George Washington University David Nagel told Express that LENR could help produce clean water. Though products associated with LENR would come out in a year, it would take another five years before the reactors go commercial as it involved validation and independent testing. _IE

One would naturally expect researchers into low energy nuclear reactions (LENRs) to be guardedly optimistic following reports of the Rossi/Focardi work. The prediction that LENR will go commercial within 5 years is decidedly optimistic, and should be viewed sceptically.

On the other hand, if an inexpensive way of tapping into non-radiative, small-sized nuclear reactions has been found, the discovery could well provide some of the tools needed for more viable pioneering on Earth, the seas, and in space.

Undersea Nuclear Reactors Can Find Multiple Uses

DCNS, the French state-controlled naval company, said it will work in partnership with French companies Areva, EDF, and the French Atomic Energy Commission to build small- and medium-sized underwater reactors to provide electricity to consumers....Radio France Internationale reported Wednesday.

The company said its Flexblue project, expected to enter the building phase in 2013, is in response to global energy challenges and renewed interest in nuclear power. _UPI

Video h/t NextBigFuture
Small, portable nuclear reactors that are made for placement under the sea, could be used for many porpoises purposes. Besides running power cables to land to serve terrestrial customers, such undersea reactors could also serve floating installations and seafloor industries -- even undersea cities.

Akin to the submarines that DCNS has been making for the French navy for 40 years, Flexblue is a cylindrical unit 100 metres in length and 12 to 15 metres in diameter. Inside would be a small nuclear power reactor and well as steam generators, turbines and a generator to produce 50 to 250 MWe.

The vision is for such a unit to be installed on the seabed under 60 to 100 metres of water, several kilometres from a centre of power demand such as a city, industrial base or remote community which it would serve via underwater cables.

A video released today depicts the unit's deployment under naval guard. It is transported to sea on a heavy lift ship which lowers itself to allow Flexblue to maneuvre under its own power. Descent occurs under the watch of divers before a cutaway view reveals four stories of plant within the hull. The structure is then covered by a net and power is transmitted by cable to shore. _WorldNuclearNews_via_NextBigFuture

WNN
Brazil is already planning for "undersea cities" as replacements for deep ocean offshore oil rigs:

The plan is to construct 'cities’ more than 2,000 metres under water, containing machines, giant pieces of equipment and robots that could inspect the systems being used to extract millions of barrels of oil. Many operations would be fully automated while others would be controlled by humans at a distance.

“Our target is that we won’t need platforms in ten years from now,” said Carlos Tadeu Fraga, executive manager of the Petrobras Research Centre.

Petrobras already owns virtual reality laboratories where engineers can inspect 3D images of oil fields. But now they want to take a further technological leap by installing floating rig equipment on the sea bed.

The machinery under the sea would be capable of separating oil, gas, water and sand, compressing substances and generating enough energy to keep the operation functioning.

As deep sea mineral mining and deep sea science and exploration joins deep sea oil & gas drilling, the need for self-powered seafloor installations will grow in urgency. Sealed nuclear reactors that can run between 20 and 50 years on a single fueling will provide the necessary energy security for such installations.

A few years ago, the Estonian Maritime Academy proposed the development and installation of a subsea nuclear reactor off the Estonian coast in the Baltic Sea, for provision of basic power to the country. US naval submarines have traversed the world's oceans for several decades, powered safely and reliably by small nuclear reactors, so the concept of undersea reactors is well proven.

The idea of nuclear powered undersea cities may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but show me a better way to power a post-apocalyptic undersea civilisation. And what better place to survive the great lefty-Luddite environmentalist-engineered dieoff of humans on the surface? Abundant electricity allows for producing freshwater via desalination, oxygen for breathing via electrolytic splitting of water, hydrogen for fuel cells and chemical processes, etc. Nuclear reactors produce plenty of heat, so there would be no reason to be cold, regardless of outside sea temperatures.

Last but not least, plentiful small modular nuclear reactors -- both on land and sea -- should put a quick end to all of the EROEI nonsense one hears batted around at peak energy religious websites. ;-)

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin blog

Something not mentioned in the alfin2100 version of this article is the use of seafloor nuclear reactors to power the autonomous machine mining of methane clathrates and seafloor coal -- both resources are likely to prove enormous beyond current reckoning. Deep seafloor mining of coal -- if it ever becomes necessary on Earth -- will have to be done by either autonomous machine or by remotely controlled robotics.

As for off-planet seafloor mining of methane clathrates -- it may be some time before that is necessary on Europa or Titan, given the energy-rich atmospheres and surface frozen precipitates.

India Aims to Reduce Costs of Algal Oils by Factor of 25!

India's Institute of Chemical Technology is aiming to reduce the cost of producing oils from algae from Rs 500 per litre to roughly Rs20 per litre. Using a combination of careful selection of algal species plus genetic engineering to produce higher oil production, ICT researchers believe they can bring the price of algal fuels down to earth.

In the US, there already exist technologies to generate algal biofuels but the cost of production is very high, around Rs500 a litre. India aims to bring down the cost to Rs20 per litre from micro-algae that can be grown on a super scale.

Stephen Mayfield, director, San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, University of California, said: “Countries with a well-trained technological force like India will have an enormous advantage, but only if investments along these lines are made now.”

ICT’s five-year project in collaboration with International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, will genetically modify the best-suited algal strains to increase productivity...Once the best strains of algae are indentified, they will undergo genetic modification to change their photosynthetic machinery for efficient carbon dioxide assimilation and growth, followed by cost effective technologiesc for harvesting and conversion to suitable biofuels.

“Marine algae have relatively poor growth rate and biomass yield that will lead to inefficient biofuel production,” said Syed Shams Yazdani, head, Synthetic Biology and Biofuel Group at ICGEB.

“Therefore, we are metabolically engineering the marine algae to improve its growth rate and fat content for biodiesel production,” he said. _CheckBiotech

Mexico and parts of Africa may soon be locations for new Agave plantations for biofuels:

Researchers have discovered that the Agave plant, used in making tequila, may be an excellent source of biofuels, with two agave species producing yields of biofuels that far surpassed the yields from biofuel feedstocks such as corn, wheat, soybean, and sorghum.

Reporting in a recent edition of the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy, scientists said that 14 studies confirmed the high biofuel potential of Agave.

The fuel can be harvested from the remains of the plant after it has been used to make tequila, or can be grown on abandoned Agave plantations in Mexico and Africa, the report said.

In either case, researchers say that large amounts of Agave biofuel could be grown without the need to produce the crop on lands that could be used to grow food - a major drawback of biofuels such as corn and soybeans. _CheckBiotech

Agave can grow on lands unsuited for other biofuels crops such as sugar cane, maize, wheat, soy, rape, etc.

What we are likely to see, once humans learn to produce biofuels economically, is a huge glut of biofuels and biofuel feedstocks and byproducts. Humans will need to find good, economical uses for all of these things, as prices for liquid fuels will tend to drop at that time.

Remember that while the bounty from human research into abundant liquid fuels is slowly hitting the markets and ramping up production, an accelerating movement from liquid and gas fuels over to nuclear energy (and perhaps enhanced geothermal) will also be taking place. For a period of about 30-50 years, new modular nuclear plants will be used to facilitate extraction and production of unconventional fossil fuels such as oil sands and oil shales (kerogens). But over the next 50 years, nuclear generated electricity will displace most of the energy uses of fossil fuels, except air transport and much of marine transport.

So, by the time algal fuels are slicing away market share from fossil fuels, humans will already be moving away from liquid fuels for most energy uses. All the research will not have been wasted, however, since there are multiple applications for everything the researchers are doing.

Another Look at Small Modular Reactors, and the NRC Process

The politically conservitave US Heritage Foundation has taken a look at the state of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) in the US. Here are some of the main points:

1 Small modular reactors (SMRs) represent an important development in the evolution of commercial nuclear power in the United States.

2 SMRs can be built in the United States and could provide important competition in the energy industry that will push technology forward while driving prices lower.

3 Their lower up-front capital costs than traditional nuclear power, scalability, and multi-functionality add to the benefits that attract investors.

4 Inefficient licensing and rulemaking, a failed nuclear waste management policy, and too much federal government intervention are creating barriers to the SMR progress.

5 Most current attempts to promote SMR development rely on government bureaucrats and politicians to decide the future of the industry rather than relying on market forces.

6 Instead, the federal government should develop a new, market-based approach that provides a stable regulatory environment, promotes competition, and relies on private investment and sustainable economics. _HeritageFoundation

There is much more of interest at the link above. It is important to note that while lefty-Luddite faux environmental groups have been instrumental in stalling the construction and halting the operation of many nuclear plants, in the end it is the US government and its NRC which create the largest obstacles to clean abundant reliable next-gen nuclear reactors.

It is worth mentioning again that Holtec International has entered the SMR competition.

AllThingsNuclear
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- along with all other government regulatory agencies which influence nuclear power and energy -- is at the center of the logjam for developing cleaner, safer, more abundant, and more reliable forms of energy for the US.

Gregory Jazcko, the US NRC chief, has announced that GE and Westinghouse will be moved to the front of the line to be considered for new license and permit reviews. Given the central positioning of General Electric inside the Obama administration, that announcement is not much of a surprise. Watch for any other signs of overt favouratism from the NRC.

Another "brave and daring" announcement from chief Jazcko, is his declaration that he feels it is time to move the proposed rules for the Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor to the "advanced" stage of public comment.

The various licensing and permitting processes of government bureaucracies such as the NRC, involve mandatory successive stages of processing. Consider it a huge make-work welfare program for government bureaucrats and associated contractors and flunkies. It does not guarantee a better service to the public, but it certainly guarantees an expensive "service," in terms of time and money transferred from the productive sector to the non-productive governmental sectors.

Russia Desperate for Outside Expertise to Produce Oil&Gas

Prime Minister Putin's corrupt prosecution and dismantling of Yukos has left Russia's vast energy wealth in the incompetent hands of national companies. National companies typically lack the expertise to develop difficult fields, and to produce oil and gas at optimal levels, for maximum yields over time. Hence the recent deals by Rosneft with both BP and Exxon Mobil. Russia has vast energy wealth, but the demographic clock is working against Russia. It has to work fast to reap the benefits of a Siberia that is slowly slipping from its grasp.

The foreign partners put up the initial upfront cash, Rosneft contributes much of the deal in the form of its licences and the Russian group ends up with two-thirds of the economics. That may look like a good deal for Moscow, but it is really a reflection of reality. Resource-rich nations want to keep an increasing share of profit for themselves and are only cutting in foreigners when they have something distinctive to offer.

Of course, in BP's case, Moscow was also able to secure a stake in its partner, because of the U.K. company's vulnerable situation. BP wasn't the most popular company in North America after the Gulf of Mexico disaster. It also had more exposure to Russia than Exxon. The result is that Exxon has maintained its independence, whereas BP won't easily shake the niggling suspicion that Moscow will somehow, sometime find ways of increasing its influence. _FinancialPost

The US Obama administration has been sucking BP dry for a while, so now it is time for Russia to have a go.

Although the world economy is desperately dependent upon oil, world governments are not above using the extortion card which a monopoly on the use of force within their borders allows them.

A Novel Approach to Small Fusion

HyperV Technologies Corp. is taking a novel approach to small fusion, using mini-railguns to accelerate multiple supersonic plasma beams into a central target of deuterium or deuterium-tritium.

According to the FocusFusionSociety website:

... the approach is geared towards deuterium and/or deuterium-tritium fusion, as opposed to advanced fusion fuels, but success there would of course remain a huge accomplishment. Some of the links on HyperV’s site are under construction, but the technical materials show a well-credentialed academic/industry team, a talk at the 2009 International Conference on Plasma Science, and a publication calculating gain from their design published in Physics of Plasmas. The work has also received funding from the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Science. _FocusFusionSociety

A spherical array of minirailgun plasma accelerators is a potential driver for forming imploding spherical plasma liners that can reach HEDP-relevant ( about 0.1 Mbar) pressures upon stagnation. The liners would be formed via merging of 30 or more dense, high Mach number plasma jets (n about 10^16−17 cm−3, M about 10–35, v about 50–70 km/s, rjet about 5 cm) in a spherically convergent geometry. The small (typically 1-2 cm square bore x 15-50 cm length) parallel-plate railguns with ceramic insulators would use pulsed injection of high-Z gas at the breech via fast opening valves to produce high density plasma jets with velocity in the 50-100 km/s range. Recent tests at HyperV using a single pulsed capillary discharge injecting into the minirailgun breech have achieved plasma densities in the bore approaching 10^18 cm−3, with densities in the jet plume exceeding 1017 cm−3 at velocities above 50 km/s. Total plasma jet mass in these 1 cm square bore tests has not yet been determined, but similar tests of an earlier 6 mm square bore 13 cm long device, with a roughly 3 μs, 100 kA current pulse using an aluminized mylar fuse starting from rest, yielded 90 μg of plasma at 50 km/s, and about 40 μg at 63 km/s. A modest scaleup of the railgun to a 2 cm square bore operating at longer pulse widths of 200-300 kA should be capable of accelerating a few thousand micrograms of high-Z gas (e.g. xenon) to above 50 km/s. This performance should be sufficient for reaching HEDP-relevant pressures. _HyperV Presentation_quoted at NextBigFututre

HyperV Technologies is a US Virginia-based research group that aims to achieve "tunable" nuclear fusion power on the 100 MW and up scale. Its approach is to utilise a spherical array of magnetic railgun supersonic plasma jet injectors aimed at a central "magnetic fuel" target.

NextBigFuture HyperV

Brian Wang has more at NextBigFuture including graphics.

HyperV PDF Presentation on Mini-Railgun Plasma Injectors

More Technical Papers about HyperV's research

Several fusion approaches have studied the "colliding beam" approach, without success. The conventional laser inertial technique used at Livermore is another type of targeted energy approach, which has mainly succeeded in eating up many billions in research grants so far. General Fusion's approach to target-focused fusion involves a hybrid combination of magnetic confinement and pneumatic compression.

HyperV attempts to focus multiple plasma jets onto a magnetically confined central target, in a switched-pulse fashion. At this time -- like most of the other small fusion projects -- it appears to be purely in the research proof of concept stage.

Carnival of Nuclear Energy #38 @ Canada Nuclear Issues

Brian Wang points to another issue of the fabulous carnival of the nukes, the latest edition (#38) being hosted by Canada Nuclear Issues blog. Here are some excerpts:

Dan Yurman’s article this week is “Talking about a Sputnik Moment is a Mistake.” Dan refers to president Obama’s call, in his most recent State of the Union speech, for massive funding for research into, among other things, “clean energy technology.” By invoking Sputnik, the first man-made satellite which was launched by the USSR and not the USA, the president intended to spur Americans to new breakthroughs that would make the US once again a world leader in the field. Dan thinks the analogy is off-base. The original Sputnik shocked America into focused and well-funded action, which put Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969.
Contrast that with today: what response was the invocation of Sputnik intended to produce? Nobody really knows. Meanwhile, China is forging ahead with aggressive development of a Generation IV molten salt reactor fueled with liquid thorium. Such development is stalled in the US (along with the renaissance in large water-cooled power reactors; more below).
Charles Barton, in “Why the Chinese Commitment to the LFTR Matters,” picks up on that theme (LFTR stands for liquid fluoride thorium reactor). He believes the LFTR is superior to conventional uranium fueled water-cooled reactors. Thorium is abundant and cheap, and the LFTR has the potential to greatly improve both economics and safety. China’s interest in it is telling: that country’s economy is exploding, as is its need for huge amounts of concentrated energy. It is critical for that energy to remain cheap.
Brian Wang offers three posts for this carnival. Two, “Kazatomprom will boost uranium production to 19600 tons in 2011 and Areva delays Namibian mine Trekkopje” and “Kazakhstan doubles 2008 uranium production and Namibia Uranium expansion in progress,” deal with uranium production. Anybody who doubts a global nuclear renaissance is taking place should read these posts. Kazakhstan recently overtook Canada as the largest uranium producing country, and Namibia’s output has more than doubled since 2003.
The nuclear renaissance is hugely feared by the competition. This is why opponents of nuclear power are so quick to point to any lulls in the renaissance as proof that it’s not happening at all. Is that accurate? Gail Marcus, in “The Nuclear Lull: What Does it Mean?,” critically examines that claim. Gail formerly held a senior position at the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, and knows what she’s talking about. As you’ll see, the current lull only looks like a lull if you believe that some of the much-publicized plans for nuclear construction were ever firm in the first place. Not all were.
_NuclearBlogCarnival#38

In addition, at Al Fin blog we learn more about why nuclear power may be the best form of energy for the coming ice age

The UK has learned a lesson about its wind power folly from recent extreme cold weather, and is looking into increasing its nuclear power fraction

More on the regulatory and financial uncertainty which is slowing the US nuclear renaissance to a crawl

It is the avowed purpose of the lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgy movement to choke off all reliable energy supplies to western nations -- particularly the US. This designed energy starvation leads inevitably to worsening economic conditions, a rise in unemployment, popular unrest, and political instability. As all of that is happening in the world's most advanced nations and its only superpower, the situation in the rest of world grows even direr. Only through an honest and unblinking look at who is causing the problem, can problem solvers see a clean way through to a more abundant future.

Update: Holtec International has announced a new design for an "Inherently Safe Modular Underground Reactor" rated at 140 MWe.  More info at World Nuclear News, at Pennenergy, and at NextBigFuture.

Is nuclear power a better fit for South Africa's needs than wind and solar? Yes, but. South Africa is a nation in transition. Thanks to South Africa's corrupt government, most of the transition is in a downward direction. Can South Africa field the necessary team of competent engineers, technologists, electrical workers, security force, nuclear specialists, and all the rest of the competent people needed to safely operate a nuclear power infrastructure? Remember that the average IQ of South Africa is only 72 IQ points, according to the best available studies. The normal curve around such a mean -- assuming a SD of 15 points -- means that the critical IQ level of 115 points needed for advanced technical competence, sits 3 full SDs above the mean!

Nuclear energy is fairly safe, but only if the skilled manpower is available. Otherwise, downward-trending societies such as South Africa might be forced to learn how to "fail gracefully."

More on Dense Plasma Focus Fusion

FocusFusionSociety
Brian Wang provides some updated information on the incremental progress being made by the Lawrenceville Plasma Physics group working on dense plasma focus fusion.

The experimental gear is being upgraded and "ruggedized" in order to handle the higher voltage and current to be used as the experiments progress toward the ultimate goals of achieving fusion with a proton-Boron fuel.

One of the changes is the provision of larger tungsten rod "spark plugs." In this case, clearly size does matter.

Here is more from a recent LPP paper to be published in the Journal of Fusion Energy:

The DPF is a compact and simple device first developed in the 1960s by N. V. Filippov in the USSR and by J. W. Mather in the USA and has been studied by dozens of groups over the last 45 years, resulting a large and rich literature. It consists of two concentric cylindrical electrodes enclosed in a vacuum chamber. The chamber is evacuated to low pressure and then backfilled to several torr with the fuel gas. A pulse of electricity with a rise time of 0.2-10 s from a capacitor bank is discharged across the electrodes during operation. [4] In operation, the capacitors discharge in a several-microsecond pulse, the gas is ionized and a current sheath, consisting of pinched current filaments, forms and runs down the electrodes. When the sheath reaches the end of the inner electrode (the anode), the filaments pinch together forming dense, magnetically confined, hot spots or plasmoids.[5-6] The plasmoids emit X-rays with energy from several keV to over 100 keV.

...These plasmoids emit intense beams of accelerated ions and electrons[16-19]. Fusion neutrons are emitted from the device in large quantities (up to 10^13 ) per shot._LPP PDF

The video above is a quick 1 minute introduction to LPP's dense plasma fusion approach, with a dynamic 3D schematic of the apparatus in action.

LPP's chief Eric Lerner put together a "webinar" in autumn 2010 to explain the focus fusion approach. Follow the YouTube links to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th installments of the webinar.

Focus Fusion Society
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics
Switches and Sparkplugs

More on small scale fusion approaches from M. Simon

A Spanish Solution: Renewable Diesel from Waste

A team at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (Spain) has designed a new simple, energy-efficient process (that also does not require any organic solvents) for the production of renewable diesel from biomass waste. A paper on their work is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. _GCC

The name of the game in biofuels is efficiency and affordability of both feedstock and every step in the pre-processing, refining, and synthesis processes -- plus efficient distribution. Given the upward creep of liquid fuel prices caused by emerging demand, speculation, and cartel shenannigans, it is crucial that renewable alternative liquid fuels be made affordable. To that end, teams of researchers and technologists are working on the problem around the world.

A number of routes have been and are being developed for the conversion of biomass into renewable fuels, including (but not limited to):

• Gasification of biomass followed by Fischer-Tropsch synthesis;
• Fast pyrolysis and upgrading of bio-oil;
• Hydrolysis of biomass followed by the fermentation of the sugars by genetically modified microorganisms to hydrocarbons;
• Dehydration of hydrolyzed sugars to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) or into furfural (FUR) when starting from hexoses or pentoses, respectively, followed by aqueous phase processing;
• Production of γ-valerolactone from biomass-derived carbohydrates via levulinic acid, followed by decarboxylation to produce butene and CO2, the former then being oligomerized to octenes and hexadecenes in a second step.

This list of processes to produce second-generation biofuels can be further expanded, but the extent to which one of these technologies will play an active role in the future biofuel industry will depend on economics, energy efficiency, and environmental issues. Surplus energy consumption and process limitations can be detected in most of the processes proposed to date. For example, the excessive cleavage of carbon–carbon bonds and subsequent reformation leads to energy losses. Extractions of products with organic solvents are energy and cost-intensive steps that change, to the worse, the overall energy balance of the process. Organic solvents as reaction medium should be avoided, as they enlarge process volumes with a negative impact on process economics and environment. A crucial point for the optimization of the overall process economics is the perfect overlap of the boiling point range of the product mixture, with diesel range C9 to C24 hydrocarbons.

Here is the Spanish solution devised by U. Politecnica de Valencia researchers:

The first step is the conversion of biomass into furfural—an established industrial process. In an adaptation of another current process, furfural can be converted with high selectivity into 2-methyl-furfural (2MF), a ring consisting of four carbon atoms and one oxygen atom, with a side chain consisting of a methyl group (-CH3).

Three molecules of 2MF are linked together. This requires water and an acid catalyst. This reaction causes one third of the rings to open and each to link to two other rings (hydroxy alkylation/alkylation). The aqueous phase, which also contains the catalyst, separates from the organic phase, which contains the intermediate product, on its own. It can easily be removed and the catalyst recycled. In a second reaction, the two other rings must also be opened and their oxygen atoms removed. This reaction uses a special platinum-containing catalyst (hydrodeoxygenation).

In the end we obtain 87% of the diesel fraction in the form of branched hydrocarbon chains with nine to 16 carbon atoms. This is the best yield reported in the literature thus far for biodiesel synthesis.
—Avelino Corma

The process is very stable at lab levels (more than 140h). Gas-phase and lower molecular weight byproducts can be used to produce heat. The resulting renewable hydrocarbon liquids are of excellent quality (cetane number 71, pour point -90 °C) and can be mixed directly with conventional diesel fuels.

_GCC

A good use for used motor oil

Another wastewater to diesel conversion using algae

Questions about the validity and reliability of the recent Rand report on algal fuels for the US military are beginning to crop up. More on that later.

Big Wind Energy Just For Dummies and Crooks?

US President Obama and former Vice President Al Gore are both enthusiastic about the potential of big wind energy farms. But more informed, intelligent, and honest energy analysts and observers are not so sanguine.

In order to assure a constant availability of electricity, a grid needs to be protected against the sudden loss of any power plant. This can occur, for a wind farm, if the wind speed increases beyond acceptable limits. The sudden loss of wind power must be accommodated by the rest of the power plants connected to the grid. They must be available with a spinning reserve to provide this backup power when needed. Of course, this is true for the loss of any type of power plant. But a wind increase may occur suddenly over a large area and shut off all the wind power connected to the grid.

Hydro electric plants and natural gas plants can respond fairly quickly to the sudden loss of another power plant, but as more wind farms are added to the grid, the problem of grid stability gets more severe. Grid stability, therefore, limits the amount of wind energy that can be accommodated by the grid (to roughly 15 percent). _FittingWindOntotheGrid

Most grid managers would prefer not to have any wind power on the grid, since dealing with even a small amount of wind power is like dodging bullets for electrical grid personnel.

A typical wind farm would generate electricity about 30 percent of the time, and not necessarily at times when electricity is needed. There is a very big difference between intermittent sources of electricity, such as wind farms, and baseload sources, such as nuclear power. The argument that nuclear power also has down times is true, but these refueling and maintenance outages are largely planned during times of low electricity demand (during spring and fall). _Economics of Wind Power

Most of the time either there is no wind, too little wind to use, or too much wind to safely run the turbine. During the UK's recent spell of super-cold arctic weather, its wind generators provided power less than 5% of the time. Imagine if the UK were even more dependent on wind power than at present. Imagine that to be the case, without nuclear energy from France available as backup, during an extended cold spell of years, decades, or longer.

The capacity factor of the 104 nuclear reactors operating in the United States is 90 percent. In other words, nuclear facilities crank out electricity around the clock, 365 days of the year, at pretty near their total capacity. Compare that to the results of a study from a group of wind power advocates at the University of Delaware that modeled data from off shore meteorological stations from Maine to the Florida Keys. Their results show that a large offshore turbine array would attain a 90 percent capacity factor only 2.2 days a year. Their numbers show that 20,000 five megawatt turbines would be needed to equal the full generating capacity of those 104 reactors. Even 1,200 turbines would not supply electricity as dependably as a new reactor like the one proposed at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. _BaltimoreChronicle

It sounds as if an advanced nation that allowed itself to become dependent on wind power for its electricity, would experience the same sort of quality of electrical service provision as a typical third world country.

Here are some "levelized cost comparisons" for building various types of power generation plants

If you haven't read John Droz presentation on wind energy, you need to do so ASAP

Ted Rockwell's Energy Facts PDF is also a must-read (PDF)

David Mackay's "Without Hot Air" is another useful quantitative comparison of energy sources

Whimsical Claims from BARD, an Algal Fuels Company

GreenTechMedia
BARD's claims are too whimsical to put in a headline or title. But in an atmosphere of mainstream doubt regarding the short to intermediate-term viability of algal fuels, these claims are too cute to ignore. Keep in mind these claims are for yields, not for profitability:

: "Biofuel Advance Research and Development, LLC. (BARD) has entered into an agreement with The Green Institute Inc. to construct and operate a commercial scale algae system pilot facility located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The planned facility will produce algae biomass to be used to produce biodiesel, and other commercial products. The pilot facility is estimated to produce 20,000,000 gallons of algae oil / biodiesel per acre per annum [emphasis added]. Initially, the pilot facility will produce 43,070 gallons of algae oil / biodiesel per annum using 6 modules of photo-bioreactors covering 84 square feet." _Greentechmedia

Got that? The claim is for roughly 43,000 gallons of oil in 84 square feet over one year. Since there are roughly 43,000 square feet in an acre, they claim that they would have produced over 20,000,000 gallons of oil per year had they expanded their lab facility to 1 acre size.

Here is what an algae guru from NASA and other algae experts say about the claims:

According to John Benemann [an algae expert], with 'normal' systems we can expect at the very most 5,000 gal/acre/yr from open ponds. This either means that BARD is doing something very revolutionary or they are not telling us that their yield of 9+ million gal/acre will take them 1,886 years to produce! We have a real problem with light unless of course we use artificial light and then we have an energy problem or a photonic materials cost problem... These guys may have discovered a miracle organism, but I suspect they are selling snake oil rather than making algae oil.

...According to Bob Walsh, the CEO of Aurora Biofuels: "While it is hard to comment on another company's technology when you are not under the hood, I can say we believe the absolute theoretical maximum is 10,000 gal/acre/year. The white paper GreenFuel Technologies: A Case Study for Industrial Photosynthetic Energy Capture by Dr. Krassen Dimitrov, PhD, March 2007 goes through the calculations.

"We also believe engineering systems [photo bioreactors and their ilk] will not deliver huge increases in productivity. Engineering has to drive out the typical costs of algae production but cannot double production. Our most recent scientific progress, which decreased photo inhibition increased our capability from the 2,000 gal/acre/year level to consistently producing above 4,000 gal/acre/year. Our scientific team believes 6,000 gal/acre/year is an achievable target." _GTM

Clearly BARD is doing a great deal of extrapolation, and is likely supplementing its module's sunlight with artificial light, in addition to feeding its algae some very expensive algal food. Yield is irrelevant if the process is not economically viable.

But there are ways to fudge the yield. Imagine a tall rotating cylindrical building, with a 120 ft radius and a height of 4,000 feet. The algae are grown on panels (or bags, etc) on the cylinder's outer surface. Given an oil yield of 5,000 gal / acre / year on the cylinder's surface -- but with the building's footprint occupying roughly 1 acre of land -- an algal facility could theoretically produce about 20,000,000 gallons of oil per "acre" per year, using only sunlight for photons.

Perhaps this is what BARD has in mind? They will have to find a cheap way of rotating the building to provide uniform sunlight for all the pannels. Of course their are other ways of sharing the sunlight -- rotate only the outer surface, or slide the panels around in any number of elaborate patterns . . . Or if BARD locates the building on a hill surrounded with mirrors that bathed the panels with sunlight, they might get away with a smaller building. You can probably think of a novel approach yourself if you give it some thought. But keep it between yourself and your investors, for now.

It all depends upon what BARD's investors or government sponsors are willing to go for. The numbers provided are certainly impressive -- large enough to throw your blog host into a whimsical mood at the very least. So whimsical that I hesitate to pour that scotch and water, savouring the natural whimsy instead.

Nuclear Power in the Age of Idiocracy

The Generation IV project has selected six nuclear energy systems for further development involving a variety of reactor, energy conversion and fuel cycle technologies.

The six research areas are:
A gas-cooled fast reactor featuring a fast neutron spectrum, helium-cooled reactor and closed fuel cycle.

A very high-temperature reactor that is helium-cooled.

A super critical water-cooled reactor that is a high-temperature, high-pressure water-cooled reactor that operates above the thermodynamic critical point of water.

A sodium-cooled fast reactor that features a fast-spectrum, sodium-cooled reactor and closed fuel cycle.

A lead-fuelled fast reactor that includes a closed fuel cycle.

And a molten salt reactor that produces fission power in circulating molten salt.


According to the world nuclear association, most of the six systems employ a closed fuel cycle to maximise the resource base and minimise high-level wastes to be sent to a repository. Only one is cooled by light water.

Two of the remaining reactors are helium-cooled and the others have lead-bismuth, sodium or fluoride salt coolant, making it possible to operate at low pressure, with a safety advantage.

The sizes range from 150- 1500MW output with the lead-cooled one available as a 50-150MW electrical so-called "battery" with a long-core life (15-20 years without refuelling). _The Australian

Image SourceThe good news is that several countries seem to be moving ahead to develop advanced nuclear reactors of a safer, more efficient, more reliable design. China, India, France, Japan, and Russia are working actively on new generation designs. Several US companies are also working on new designs -- but without any realistic expectation that their reactors will be put to use in their home country.

The best nuclear bet for the US and other apparently energy-averse western countries, seems to be the small modular nuclear reactor (SMR).

Most of the nuclear plants now working and being constructed overseas are big, capable of producing from 700 megawatts to 1700MW. Finland has several plants already and is expanding its complex at Olkiluoto from two to three plants.

But much of the research and development attention is also being focused on small-scale units that the industry hopes will be cheaper to build and more flexible to operate, drastically changing the economics of the industry.

According to former Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation chairman Ziggy Switkowski, there has been a big escalation of interest in small reactors of about 100MW capacity for application in remote areas and small towns. He says small reactors are expected on the market within five years.

These reactors will be the size of two shipping containers and can be built underground. They will be gas-cooled, so they will not require large amounts of water and they can be expanded.

A range of small land-based demonstration nuclear reactors will soon be trialled in the US.

French group DCNS, which has been a supplier of nuclear submarines to the French Navy, this week unveiled a small offshore nuclear plant called Flexblue.

Flexblue is a cylindrical unit 100m long and 12 to 15m in diameter, which houses a small nuclear power reactor as well as steam generators, turbines and a generator to produce from 50MW to 250MW of electricity.

The vision is for the reactors to be installed on the seabed under 60m to 100m of water, several kilometres from a centre of demand such as a city, industrial base or remote community, served via underwater cables.

The nuclear industry is hopeful that small nuclear plants could be the game-changer that will give nuclear a niche in a rapidly evolving electricity market being transformed to accommodate much greater use of renewable technologies such as wind and solar. _TheAustralian

But the Idiocracy presents a number of dangers to the use of advanced nuclear fission as a bridge to the future's energy technologies, such as fusion.

The Idiocracy comes into the picture in at least two ways -- in advanced industrial nations, advance vanguards of the Idiocracy enmeshed within the faux environmental movement and lefty-Luddite politica groups, work actively to shut down existing plants and prevent new nuclear plants from being constructed. In the third world, the Idiocracy is simply the established order, including a lack of qualified (and qualifiable) persons to run a technology as sophisticated as nuclear power.

A large number of nuclear power employment opportunities are expected to open up over the next decade. There are insufficient training institutions in the civilian infrastructure to supply these workers, although military schools such as the US Navy's Nuclear Power School should be helpful in supplying retired and separated military engineers and technicians.

Oxford Economics, an energy consulting firm, estimated the impact on employment from the construction of 50 new conventional light-water reactors by 2030, along with 20 advanced high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, 12 fast-spectrum reactors and three used-fuel recycling facilities. The company estimates this would create 75,000 manufacturing jobs, 100,000 construction jobs, and 100,000 indirect jobs.

... Under one scenario for high growth, domestic SMR manufacturing and construction would add 255,000 jobs annually to the U.S. economy. _BCE

Advanced western countries can provide these skilled workers if they get serious about both the technology and the training. Otherwise, the road toward an abundant energy future will be rocky.
As for the Idiocracy -- the third world and the "third worldisation" of the rest of the world -- a low IQ population is not suited to nuclear power. The potential for damaging accidents is too great when the people running the nuclear facility are not up to standards. Best for the third world to stick to biofuels and other simple, low-risk fuels. Even oil & gas pipeline infrastructure and basic electrical grid infrastructure are too much for many third world populations to manage safely and reliably without outside assistance. What a nightmare nuclear power would be in such environments.

When looking at the human future, it is clear that there will be several futures, corresponding to the ultimate potentials of different human populations. The violence and unrest across Northern Africa, the Middle East, Subsaharan Africa, Central Asia, and parts of South and Central America bear sad witness to the tendency of low IQ human populations to regress to low standards of behaviour, without oversight.

There is a wide range of energy technologies which are being developed. It is best to fit the energy technology to the abilities of the underlying society, to avoid too many serious mishaps.

Those who consider the Deepwater Horizon spill or the Three Mile Island breech serious mishaps, have clearly led very sheltered lives.

H/T Energy Tribune

Converting Abundant Glycerol Waste into Useful Chemicals & Fuel

Source
A research student at U. Alabama Huntsville, is developing the capacity of cell bacterium Clostridium Pasteurianum to convert waste glycerol from biodiesel manaufacture into valuable fuels and chemicals.

A strain of bacteria found in soil is being studied for its ability to convert waste from a promising alternative fuel into several useful materials, including another alternative fuel.

A graduate student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville is developing biological tools to make products from crude glycerol -- a waste material from the production of biodiesel. The research is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

... About 100,000 gallons of glycerol is produced with every million gallons of biodiesel manufactured from animal fats or vegetable oils. (In 2009 more than 500 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in the U.S. while more than 2.75 billion gallons were produced in Europe.)

...The bacteria uses glycerol as a carbohydrate source. From that they produce three alcohol byproducts -- butanol, propanediol and ethanol -- plus acetic acid and butyric acid. Butanol is a particularly interesting byproduct.

"Butanol is a big alcohol molecule, twice as big as ethanol," Venkataramanan said. "You can use it as an industrial solvent and it can be used in cars, replacing gasoline with no modifications. It doesn't have some of the problems you have with ethanol, such as rapid evaporation. And ethanol is a two-carbon molecule, but butanol is a four-carbon molecule so its energy value is much higher. In fact, there are plans to use it for jet fuel.

...In their present form, the bacteria convert about 30 to 35 percent of their gylcerol meals into butanol and another 25 to 30 percent into a chemical used to make plastics. Venkataramanan is looking at different strategies to improve that yield. He is also studying the bacteria's genes to see if a more productive strain can be bioengineered. _Newswise_via_BiofuelsDigest

Similar approaches to microbial chemical synthesis are utilised at massive scale in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. It is more difficult to produce fuels economically, given the much lower prices for fuels by weight or volume, compared to prices for pharmaceuticals, chemicals, foods, etc.

In Europe, planners are anticipating much higher utilisations of biofuels and sustainable fuels over the next 30 years. After taking a foolish and ruinous detour into wind and solar investments, some of the more intelligent energy analysts and planners of Europe are beginning to sober up and comprehend the gravity of their situation. Others -- particularly lefty-Luddites -- will never learn.