A Cold Look at Big Wind in the UK 2008 to 2010

It is clear from this analysis that wind cannot be relied upon to provide any significant level of generation at any defined time in the future. There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the implications of reliance on wind for any significant proportion of our energy requirement. _UKWindReport PDF

Stuart Young Consulting has released a 28 page PDF review of UK wind power from 2008 to 2010 (via TheRegister), which contradicts many of the green talking points used to promote wind energy. Policy analysts and decision makers must have access to reliable facts and figures, if they are to help businesses and governments make the best possible decisions regarding vital energy supplies.

1. During the study period, wind generation was:
• below 20% of capacity more than half the time.
• below 10% of capacity over one third of the time.
• below 2.5% capacity for the equivalent of one day in twelve.
• below 1.25% capacity for the equivalent of just under one day a month.
The discovery that for one third of the time wind output was less than 10% of capacity, and often significantly less than 10%, was an unexpected result of the analysis.

2. Among the 124 days on which generation fell below 20MW were 51 days when generation was 10MW or less. In some ways this is an unimportant statistic because with 20MW or less output the contribution from wind is effectively zero, and a few MW less is neither here nor there. But the very existence of these events and their frequency - on average almost once every 15 days for a period of 4.35 hours - indicates that a major reassessment of the capacity credit of wind power is required.
3. Very low wind events are not confined to periods of high pressure in winter. They can occur at any time of the year.
4. The incidence of high wind and low demand can occur at any time of year. As connected wind capacity increases there will come a point when no more thermal plant can be constrained off to accommodate wind power. In the illustrated 30GW connected wind capacity model with “must-run” thermal generation assumed to be 10GW, this scenario occurs 78 times, or 3 times a month on average. This indicates the requirement for a major reassessment of how much wind capacity can be tolerated by the Grid.
5. The frequency of changes in output of 100MW or more over a five minute period was surprising. There is more work to be done to determine a pattern, but during March 2011, immediately prior to publication of this report, there were six instances of a five minute rise in output in excess of 100MW, the highest being 166MW, and five instances of a five minute drop in output in excess of 100MW, the highest being 148MW....
...
6. The volatility of wind was underlined in the closing days of March 2011 as this Report was being finalised.

• At 3.00am on Monday 28th March, the entire output from 3226MW capacity was 9MW.
• At 11.40am on Thursday 31st March, wind output was 2618MW, the highest recorded to date.
• The average output from wind in March 2011 was 22.04%.
• Output from wind in March 2011 was 10% of capacity or less for 30.78% of the time.


The nature of wind output has been obscured by reliance on “average output” figures. Analysis of hard data from National Grid shows that wind behaves in a quite different manner from that suggested by study of average output derived from the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) record, or from wind speed records which in themselves are averaged.

It is clear from this analysis that wind cannot be relied upon to provide any significant level of generation at any defined time in the future. There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the implications of reliance on wind for any significant proportion of our energy requirement.
_PDFJMTWindReport_UK

Most people are unwilling to delve into the technical details of energy cost-benefit analysis, but it is the specific technical details of big wind energy which damn the entire enterprise.

Wind output is actually below 20 per cent of maximum most of the time; it is below 10 per cent fully one-third of the time. Wind power needs a lot of thermal backup running most of the time to keep the lights on, but it also needs that backup to go away rapidly whenever the wind blows hard, or it won't deliver even 25 per cent of capacity.

Quite often windy periods come when demand is low, as in the middle of the night. Wind power nonetheless forces its way onto the grid, as wind-farm operators make most of their money not from selling electricity but from selling the renewables obligation certificates (ROCs) which they obtain for putting power onto the grid. Companies supplying power to end users in the UK must obtain a certain amount of ROCs by law or pay a "buy-out" fine: as a result ROCs can be sold for money to end-use suppliers.

Thus when wind farmers have a lot of power they will actually pay to get it onto the grid if necessary in order to obtain the lucrative ROCs which provide most of their revenue, forcing all non-renewable providers out of the market. If the wind is blowing hard and demand is low, there may nonetheless be just too much wind electricity for the grid to use, and this may happen quite often...

...there is little point building more wind turbines above a certain point: after that stage, not only will they miss out on revenue by often being at low output when demand is high, but they will also miss out by producing unsaleable surplus electricity at times of low demand. The economic case for wind – already unsupportable without the ROC scheme – will become even worse, and wind will require still more government support (it already often needs large amounts [3] above and beyond ROCs).

The idea that pumped storage will be able to compensate for absent wind – meaning that there will be no need for full thermal capacity able to meet peak demand – is also exposed as unsound. The UK has just 2,788 megawatts of pumped-storage capacity and it can run at that level for just five hours. UK national demand is above 40,000 megawatts for 15 hours a day and seldom drops below 27,000. Pumped storage would have to increase enormously both in capacity and duration – at immense cost – before it could cope even with routine lulls hitting the planned 30-gigawatt wind sector, let alone rare (but certain to occur) prolonged calms. _TheRegister

Big wind without big storage becomes a big drain on the entire economy. But big, utility-scale storage is expensive to build, and not available everywhere.

It has been argued that hydro power provides a good backup to wind, but given what we are learning about big wind's unreliability and huge costs, why would anyone even bother trying to make big wind palatable? The underlying compulsion to build big wind and solar -- carbon hysteria -- rests upon unscientific claims and unreliable computer models.

Big wind is a huge and ruinously expensive house of cards, being built up for reasons both corrupt and emotional, not rational to the public purse which is called upon to prop up the faulty enterprise. It is long since time to call it quits.

More: See this GWPF article linking to this John Muir Trust coverage of the same report.

A Quick Look at the USEIA's World Shale Gas Resources Report

Brian Wang
The US EIA has released a 350 page report (51 MB PDF Download) assessing the world shale gas resources (for 32 selected nations). While the huge US shale gas bonanza is well known, the wealth of shale gas in the rest of the world was not as widely known prior to the publishing of this report.

As the technology and expertise for developing this resource spreads out from North America to Europe, Asia, South America, and Oceania, we can expect the global energy equation to change drastically -- just as it has changed recently within the US and Canada.

The location of these resources -- inside nations not typically known for their vast hydrocarbon deposits -- is a huge reason why shale gas will shake the established energy order to its foundations.

The initial estimate of technically recoverable shale gas resources in the 32 countries examined is 5,760 trillioncubic feet, as shown in Table 1. Adding the U.S. estimate of the shale gas technically recoverable resources of 862 trillion cubic feet results in a total shale resource base estimate of 6,622 trillion cubic feet for the United States and the other 32 countries assessed. To put this shale gas resource estimate in some perspective, world proven reserves5of natural gas as of January 1, 2010 are about 6,609 trillion cubic feet,6 and world technically recoverable gas resources are roughly 16,000 trillion cubic feet,7largely excluding shale gas. Thus, adding the identified shale gas resources to other gas resources increases total world technically recoverable gas resources by over 40 percent to 22,600 trillion cubic feet. _USEIA Report Summary

Shale Gas' WOW! Moment
The Shale Gas Energy Revolution
Global Shale Gas Boosts Total Natural Gas Resources by 40% !
Full USEIA 51 MB PDF Report Download

The take-home message is that humans have barely scratched the surface of global hydrocarbon resources. By the time they begin to scratch the surface, they should be ready to move on to advanced safe fission and fusion, as well as a number of other energy sources considered impractical at this time.

Table 1.  Estimated shale gas technically recoverable resources for select basins in 32 countries, compared to existing reported reserves, production and consumption during 2009
	2009 Natural Gas Market1           (tillion cubic feet, dry basis)			Proved Natural Gas Reserves2 (trillion cubic feet)		Technically Recoverable Shale Gas Resources (trillion cubic feet)
	Production	Consumption	Imports (Exports)
Europe
France	0.03	1.73	98%		0.2	180
Germany	0.51	3.27	84%		6.2	8
Netherlands	2.79	1.72	(62%)		49.0	17
Norway	3.65	0.16	(2,156%)		72.0	83
U.K.	2.09	3.11	33%		9.0	20
Denmark	0.30	0.16	(91%)		2.1	23
Sweden	-	0.04	100%			41
Poland	0.21	0.58	64%		5.8	187
Turkey	0.03	1.24	98%		0.2	15
Ukraine	0.72	1.56	54%		39.0	42
Lithuania	-	0.10	100%			4
Others(3)	0.48	0.95	50%		2.71	19
North America
United States(4)	20.6	22.8	10%		272.5	862
Canada	5.63	3.01	(87%)		62.0	388
Mexico	1.77	2.15	18%		12.0	681
Asia
China	2.93	3.08	5%		107.0	1,275
India	1.43	1.87	24%		37.9	63
Pakistan	1.36	1.36	-		29.7	51
Australia	1.67	1.09	(52%)		110.0	396
Africa
South Africa	0.07	0.19	63%		-	485
Libya	0.56	0.21	(165%)		54.7	290
Tunisia	0.13	0.17	26%		2.3	18
Algeria	2.88	1.02	(183%)		159.0	231
Morocco	0.00	0.02	90%		0.1	11
Western Sahara	-	-			-	7
Mauritania	-				1.0	0
South America
Venezuela	0.65	0.71	9%		178.9	11
Colombia	0.37	0.31	(21%)		4.0	19
Argentina	1,46	1.52	4%		13.4	774
Brazil	0.36	0.66	45%		12.9	226
Chile	0.05	0.10	52%		3.5	64
Uruguay	-	0.00	100%			21
Paraguay	-	-				62
Bolivia	0.45	0.10	(346%)		26.5	48
Total of above areas	53.1	55.0	(3%)		1,001	6,622
Total world	106.5	106.7	0%		6,609
Sources: 1Dry production and consumption: EIA, International Energy Statistics, as of  March 8, 2011. 2 Proved gas reserves: Oil and Gas Journal, Dec., 6, 2010, P. 46-49. 3Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria. 4U.S. data are from various EIA sources.

What is Dr. Pfromm Missing When He Says Algal Fuels are Doomed?

[Peter]Pfromm and K-State researchers Vincent Amanor-Boadu, associate professor of agricultural economics, and Richard Nelson with the Center for Sustainable Energy conducted an in-depth analysis on algae biodiesel production. Their first algae-related nonprofit study, "Sustainability of algae derived biodiesel: A mass balance approach," supplied the cover picture in a recent edition of Bioresource Technology, a peer-reviewed journal. _Eurekalert

Pfromm and his colleagues came to the conclusion that it is impractical to make biodiesel from algal oils, due to the physics of limited available sunlight, and the chemistry of limited available carbon and CO2 feedstock. These limitations -- and other shortcomings pointed out by Pfromm et al -- make the production of algal biodiesel a difficult uphill battle. The authors criticise economists who promote algal fuels, for focusing entirely on the financials, and not looking hard enough at the physics, chemistry, and microbiology of the process.

And yet, it seems as if Dr. Pfromm and his colleagues may have missed a few things regarding the algal fuels picture themselves. There is no doubt that the energy equations must balance, as must the chemical input and output equations. And there are certainly huge problems involved with both the open pond (or raceway) approach to algal farming, as well as the closed bioreactor approach. It is likely that it will take at least 5 years, and possibly 10, to solve these problems well enough to make algal fuels competitive and ready to scale up.

Algae2020 PDF
Dr. Pfromm is not alone in his pessimism toward algae. Many photosynthetic fuels researchers have turned away from algae toward cyanobacteria, and other engineered bacteria. That is because bacterial DNA is easier to access and manipulate than algal DNA. Other microbial fuels researchers have turned away from sunlight and CO2 altogether -- in favour of a feedstock and energy supply from biomass sugars.

Any photosynthetic fuels maker trying to feed his microbes with atmospheric CO2 and sunlight alone is doomed to fail. Photosynthetic microbes need a lot more carbon than they can get from the atmosphere (a mere 0.04% CO2). But cement plants and fossil fuel burning power plants provide copious amounts of CO2 which can be pumped into growing environments for microbes. And sunlight can be augmented by artificial light to enhance growth.

But the biggest thing that Dr. Pfromm and other algal skeptics seem to overlook time and time again, is that the early profits from algal fuels will not likely come from algal oil biodiesels. The early profits will come from the prolific biomass potential of algae.

Sure, eventually it will be economical to separate the lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates in order to best utilise the individual components of algal mass. But in the early stages, the algal biomass itself is the high-value crop. Micro-algae and seaweed (macro-algae) are most prolific, compared to land crops.

Growing algae for biomass, rather than for lipids, allows for much more economical and less fastidious growing methods and harvesting techniques. Locating algal biomass farms near sources of wastewater and waste CO2 allows for low-cost feedstock which can be converted quickly and economically into algal biomass. Omitting the lipid separation step streamlines the process in many ways.

Once you have the biomass, you can choose from a wide variety of methods for converting the biomass to either energy, fuels, or high value chemicals. Gasification to syngas allows for direct power generation using gas turbines, conversion to hydrocarbons via catalytic synthesis, or fermentation to alcohols and other chemicals. Pyrolysis can be even more economical, allowing the elimination of the potentially expensive drying step -- using simple straining and filtering instead.

Thermochemical (and fermentation) conversions of algal biomass to energy and fuels can take advantage of the more advanced state of development of those approaches, compared to more direct microbial fuels. Eventually, algae and other microbes will become more economical for production of fuels than the thermochemical and fermentation approaches to biomass treatment. When that happens, the industry will shift in that direction -- as the economics dictates.

Dr. Pfromm and his colleagues make some excellent points which microbial and algal fuels researchers must necessarily deal with. But they will do so successfully, in time. In the meantime, it is best to follow a logical progression in these things, as nature, science, and technology allow.

Top 10 Algal Biofuel and Biochemical trends from 2011 to 2020

A French-Spanish project to develop large scale algal fuels in closed tube reactors

One way Sapphire Energy manages to stay in the algal fuels race when so many other companies have fallen by the wayside

Learning to produce algal fuels at a cost of $94 a barrel: Not good enough, Sonny Jim! But moving in the right direction.

Tiny Microchannel Fischer-Tropsch Reactor Can Make 6 BPD!

While several R&D groups around the world have shown the potential of microchannel reactors for process intensification, only Velocys has been successful in developing the technology for industrial scale applications. This effort, begun in 1998, spanned several key scale-up steps, and recently culminated in fabricating the manufacturing test device shown in Figure 6. If operated, this reactor would have a nominal capacity of 1,000 liters/day or 6 barrels/day (bpd). _VelocysPDF

Velocys PDF White Paper
There are commercially operating oil wells which produce less than 6 barrels per day. For a tiny microchannel F-T reactor to produce that amount is remarkable. Learn more about Velocys' technology from their PDF white paper.

More: The Velocys microchannel F-T reactors can convert natural gas to liquid fuel on virtually any scale. Given that 5% of the world's natural gas production is flared (via GCC) -- burned or released into the atmosphere -- there is a lot of profit waiting to be made through such a device. Approximately 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent worldwide per year, potentially.

Microchannel design is hitting theoretical engineering like a freight train, and is beginning to impact commercial design and development as well -- for a wide array of applications. The scalability of the microchannel approach should cause most persons to eventually see industrial and power plants in a much friendlier way.

A microreactor or microstructured reactor or microchannel reactor is a device in which chemical reactions take place in a confinement with typical lateral dimensions below 1 mm; the most typical form of such confinement are microchannels.[1] Microreactors are studied in the field of micro process engineering, together with other devices (such as micro heat exchangers) in which physical processes occur. The microreactor is usually a continuous flow reactor (contrast with/to a batch reactor). Microreactors offer many advantages over conventional scale reactors, including vast improvements in energy efficiency, reaction speed and yield, safety, reliability, scalability, on-site/on-demand production, and a much finer degree of process control. _Wiki

Oregon State University engineers have developed a surface mount adhesive that will allow for much cheaper and speedier assembly of low to medium temperature microchannel reactors than previously possible.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, are developing a continuous process microchannel reactor for scalable polymer synthesis.

One use of microchannel heat exchangers already in use is the microchannel cooling system for computer processors. Microchannel designs allow for particularly efficient heat exchange -- which can be utilised for powering chemical reactions such as Fischer Tropsch, or for more mundane cooling purposes.

Other uses for microchannel reactors include high throughput analysis of samples, the experimental emulation of enzyme systems and living tissue systems, and a combination of synthesis, purification, and analysis of product in a single package. More practical uses of this technology are on the way.

Safety of Power Generation by Source

WaPo_via_NextBigFuture
At least a small part of the news media is finally moving away from nuclear hysteria. The Washington Post (via Brian Wang) has decided to break away from the pack and present a more honest look at the dangers associated with the different important forms of power generation.

History suggests that nuclear power rarely kills and causes little illness. That’s also the conclusion engineers reach when they model scenarios for thousands of potential accidents.

Making electricity from nuclear power turns out to be far less damaging to human health than making it from coal, oil or even clean-burning natural gas, according to numerous analyses. That’s even more true if the predicted effects of climate change are thrown in.

Compared with nuclear power, coal is responsible for five times as many worker deaths from accidents, 470 times as many deaths due to air pollution among members of the public, and more than 1,000 times as many cases of serious illness, according to a study of the health effects of electricity generation in Europe _WaPo

Of course, Brian Wang does a better job of explaining the issue than the Washington Post, as you might expect. Brian reveals that even wind, solar, and biomass energy production have killed many more than nuclear power.

The only two deaths associated with the Fukushima reactors incident were caused by the earthquake and tsunami. Compared to 9.0 earthquakes and 50 ft. tsunamis, nuclear power is as safe as a mother's arms.

It is important to point out that the damning statistics aimed at coal are computed by Lancet authors -- a journal which has not compiled the most trustworthy public health stats over the past 10 years. And yet, even if long-term deaths from coal use are being over-estimated by a factor of 10, they are still significant when compared to nuclear.

Future use of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal plants will slash pollution from coal use. And a new method of using waste fly ash from coal -- turning it into a high value, life-saving product -- will cause the informed public to look at even that ugly waste product differently.

Even with 40 year-old reactors, nuclear power is the safest source around by far. Imagine how much safer nuclear could be if Mr. Obama's NRC ever got off its fat, lazy, pompous arse, and did its job?

Cross-posted from Al Fin

Cryogenic Utility-Scale Power Storage for Load Leveling 50% Efficient

Charge/Store: The system operates by using electrical energy to drive an air liquefier (effectively the charging system) and storing the resultant liquid air in an insulated tank (effectively the energy store) at atmospheric pressure.
Power recovery: When the stored energy is required, the liquid air is released from the storage tank, pumped in its liquid form to high pressure, vapourised and heated to ambient temperature (using either ambient heat or waste heat); the resultant high pressure gaseous air is used to drive an expansion turbine which in turn powers a generator (collectively the power recovery system). The exhaust is cold air.
Cold recapture: As the cryogen is evaporated and returned to ambient temperature in the power recovery unit, we capture the cold exergy and store it. It is then used back into the liquefaction process. Harnessing and ‘recylcing’ the cold broadly halves the energy cost of liquefaction, increasing the round-trip efficiency of the system to ~ 50%. This can be increased further by adding in waste heat, including low grade heat to the power recovery process. _Highview

POThis approach to utility-scale power storage comes from the UK, where it has been used at a Scotland power plant for 9 months. It involves cooling air to liquid temperatures (-196 C) with excess power, and storing the cryogen in an insulated tank. When power is needed, the cryogen is released into a sealed space and allowed to warm and expand -- driving a turbine to generate power.

The Highview Cryo Energy System uses liquefied air or liquid nitrogen (78% of air) which can be stored in large volumes at atmospheric pressure. Liquid nitrogen is a very common commercial product, transported daily from liquefaction plant to customer; or, for larger users, produced on site.

Liquefied air has a high expansion ratio between its liquid state (-196º Celsius) and, more common, gaseous state; expanding about 700 times when regasified. As with a traditional steam engine, a cryogenic engine relies on phase-change (liquid to gas) and expansion within a confined space e.g. engine cylinder or turbine.

Since liquid air boils at -196º Celsius, ambient temperature will superheat it, creating regasification and expansion. An engine can therefore use freely available environmental heat as the heat source.

The energy density of cryogenic fluids, such as liquid nitrogen compares favourably with alternative energy storage fluids such as compressed air. Cryogenic storage also has the advantage over compressed gases in that it can be bulk stored above ground in low pressure tanks. _Highview_via_PO

More:

Energy storage offers the opportunity to store, or ‘bank’ ‘wrong time’ energy and time-shift it to periods of peak demand or hold it in reserve. This is critical to enable the use of intermittent renewable power (e.g. wind or solar) when the customer needs it, not just when it is available. It can equally “provide shape” to must-run generation (i.e. nuclear or Energy from Waste/biomass), moving excess off-peak energy to the peak demand and pinch points. It also reduces both the capital cost and carbon footprint of electricity networks by making them more efficient; with stored reserves – not over-capacity of generation in reserve – to manage supply and demand.

Electricity supply and demand have to match on a second by second basis. Historically, the balance is achieved by significantly overbuilding generation, transmission, and distribution assets, and specifically keeping enough quick response generation in reserve. This is unlike any other commodity market, where storage/reserves are used to manage supply and demand, including unexpected imbalances.

Currently, quick response reserve generation includes (i) ‘spinning reserve’: generation plants burning coal or other hydrocarbons, but producing reduced power so as to be in a state of readiness; or (ii) gas and diesel generators: quick to start but environmentally poor.

Emission and environmental legislation, plus the simple cost of building over-capacity into the network is driving the need for a zero emission solution.

Market Potential for energy storage: ~ $600 billion over the next 10 -12 years

According to the US Dept of Energy, “big energy storage is an effective tool to improve the reliability, stability, and efficiency of the envisioned electrical grid of the future. This grid will be significantly impacted by new demands, such as plug-in electrical vehicles, increased use of renewable energies, and smart grid controls. Large scale storage technology could shave the peaks from a user or utility load profile, increase asset utilization and delay utility upgrades, decrease fossil fuel use and provide high levels of power quality, while increasing grid stability. In addition, distributed energy storage near load centers can reduce congestion on both the distribution and transmission systems.”
_Highview

This technology can also be used for "waste heat to power" and for commercial cooling.This approach is almost an "off the shelf" design, requiring no new technology development. It appears to be easily scalable. Efficiencies of 50% are somewhat below that of flow cells (65%) and pumped storage hydroelectric (75%), but cryogenic storage does not require nearby mountain reservoirs (as with pumped storage hydro) or significant technology improvements (as with flow cells).

More: An optimist hopes that large scale energy storage will allow a small arid country like Israel to generate 90% of its power needs from solar. He is looking at pumped storage hydro and redox flow cell batteries, but the principle is the same when using cryogenic storage. Unfortunately for the Israeli solar champion quoted at the link, following his prescription would assure an even speedier death of the micro-state than is already in the cards due to demographics. The expense of building and maintaining such a huge photovoltaic array, compared to likely costs for small modular nuclear reactors, would be exorbitant -- without even taking into account the cost of necessary storage. The result of relying on big wind or big solar is economic devastation and energy starvation. Israel, like most advanced nations, cannot afford more of either.

News Media Makes Itself an Ass over Fukushima Reactor Incident

Due to the tragic earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, over 25,000 Japanese are dead or missing. At the Fukushima nuclear reactors, no one has died. Yet the news media has been stuck on full-hysteria mode over the Japanese nuclear reactors. The media is clearly focused on a goal other than reporting the important news of the day. What could it be?

As the situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear powerplant slowly winds down, the salient facts remain the same as they have been throughout: nobody has suffered or will suffer any radiological health consequences. Economic damage and inconvenience resulting from the quake's effects on nuclear power have been significant, but tiny in comparison to all other human activities – the nuclear power plants in the stricken region have suffered less damage and caused less trouble to local residents than anything else that was there.

Despite this background, the details of which are now largely uncontested, hysteria continues to grip large sections of the news media and the internet. _Register

It is natural to be concerned about a disaster which might conceivably affect you or someone you care about. But intelligent people use such natural concerns as motivation to inform themselves on the facts. For a more balanced look at what is going on at the Fukushima reactors:

This excellent summary of the Fukushima incident from Rod Adams is one of several fine entries into this weeks edition (46th) of the Carnival of Nuclear Energy, hosted by Brian Wang.

News roundup from Idaho Samizdat Nuclear Notes

A measured perspective on Fukushima from Brave New Climate

An interesting article published in The Atlantic suggesting that small modular nuclear reactors may receive a boost from higher level bureaucratic and political reaction to Fukushima. (H/T NEI Nuclear Notes)

Damage to the nuclear reactors was severe in the aftermath of the scale 9 earthquake and massive tsunami. The infrastructure damage at the Fukushima reactors is an economic and energy setback for the Japanese, as well as a public relations nightmare for the Japanese and the nuclear industry in general.

But the reason why the nuclear industry is being tarred so badly is because the world's media has focused its brightest lights on the reactors -- and decided to spew the most radioactively deceptive and misleading "reporting" as possible.

Yes, the world is becoming an Idiocracy -- it doesn't require a genius to see that. Corrupt and dysfunctional government school systems are not entirely to blame, either. Clearly the news and entertainment media play an even greater role in the education and informing of most citizens than the school systems, in the long run. If the media has chosen to dumb down and mislead the public, who will watch the watchers?

Am I saying not to worry about it, that nothing can go wrong? Just the opposite. I am saying to worry about it -- worry about everything. Worry so much that you are prepared for the worst that may come your way. Then hope for the best. Worry is just your brain's way of telling you to get off your lazy arse and learn what you need to learn, do what you need to do, and make whatever preparations you need to make.

No one should need to tell you to be very sceptical of anything you read or hear.

More on how the Fukushima incident may change the direction of the nuclear industry toward more "fail-safe" reactor designs.

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin

Producing Oil at $45 a Barrel from Mixed Waste Plastics

Oregon company Agilyx has raised $22 million in new operating cash from high profile investors including Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, venture capital firm Chrystalix, and corporate investors Waste Management and Total Energy Ventures International. Agilyx has developed a system of rapid pyrolytic treatment of mixed and contaminated plastics into pure petroleum oil -- which it says it can produce at about $45 a barrel.

The company has developed a multi-step process which it says can convert about ten pounds of mixed plastics into one gallon of crude oil.

To make oil, it heats plastics to the point where they turn into a gas. There is then a condensing stage, which converts the gas back into a liquid and removes impurities.

Agilyx is now operating a demonstration plant, which is selling oil to a refiner, and intends to sell its equipment to plastic handlers and recyclers which deal with large volumes. The synthetic crude oil can be refined on site or shipped to standard refiners and the net carbon footprint from its technology is favorable, according to the company.

...The technology can produce oil at about $45 a barrel, Brian Wawro from Chrysalix told the Portland Business Journal. _CNET

The cost of the final product will depend in part upon how much the feedstock wastes cost the producer. The cheaper the garbage, the cheaper the end fuels and energy.

Agilyx is one of dozens of companies hoping to cash in on the waste-to-energy trend. Anyone who has seen video of the great garbage avalanche of 2505, will understand the importance of a tidy and resourceful re-cycling of civilisation's garbage. If you can profit from maintaining a cleaner landscape at the same time, who will complain except the dieoff.orgy greens?

Are We Due for a Sharp Correction in Oil Prices?

The old adage “you can pay now, or pay later” applies to the crude oil market here. You can ignore fundamentals for only so long. In the short term supplies don`t really matter to traders, but there comes a time when fundamentals in the market supersede political and technical based analysis.

In the end, fundamentals have the ultimate and final say regarding price direction in the market. And over the next month, fundamentals will dictate that Crude Oil prices correct to a lower level from current levels.

This correction would actually be healthy for the oil market, if this fails to materialize, and oil prices stay high with continuing oversupply and weak demand, i.e., an artificial mismatch between supply, demand, and price, expect an even “healthier” and fundamentally more severe correction when market equilibrium reasserts itself. _Dian Chu_SeekingAlpha

Dian Chu's reasoning is two-fold: First, she sees oil storage opportunities for long traders beginning to fill up, making it increasingly difficult for them to take delivery. Second, she sees the beginnings of a demand destruction developing in the US and beyond, from currently artificially inflated prices.

...it doesn`t really matter what is occurring in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa), since over the next month at the next rollover, traders will have to sell any long positions because they cannot take delivery even if they want to.

Furthermore, because of the events transpiring in the MENA over the last couple of months, traders who normally don`t take delivery have taken delivery over the last two rollovers, due to ‘what if' scenarios where Saudi Arabia became a legitimate concern, and oil spiked to $130 a barrel. The fallout from this is that traders and investors who normally take delivery will not be able to during this next rollover, as there will literally be no more storage at Cushing.

...with these high prices we are starting to experience legitimate demand destruction. It seems with these high prices it is only a matter of time before we are again at the 368 million barrels of oil in U.S. storage facilities at the Commercial level. So the Oil Bulls can no longer point to Cushing as an anomaly, we are literally swimming in Crude Oil right now in the U.S. _DianChu

If you read the comments after Chu's article, you will find many peak oil doomers who have gone long and deep into oil futures. They are assuming that their years'- and decades'-old peak oil fantasies are irrefutable truth, and are staking much of their economic well-being on such assumptions and quasi-religious beliefs.

It is a dangerous game to play, particularly when so many crucially important factors involved are not open to public display and examination. Such persons eventually get themselves in so deeply that they are compelled to wish doom on their fellow citizens, just to prove they are right -- and to save their risky and poorly thought out investments.

Think of the futures market like a casino. Only bet what you can afford to lose.

Obama to US: Energy Starvation is for Your Own Good!

All of the press conferences and television appearances may say, “We want cheap energy,” but actions speak louder than words. We’ve heard the words. What do their actions say? Why are they killing energy? _EnergyTrib

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu vows that the Obama administration is working hard to "take the pain out of high gasoline prices." Yet across the energy spectrum, the documented actions [not words] of the Obama group displays a broad policy of "energy starvation," or progressive energy shutdown.

Banning deep-water drilling in the Gulf is probably the most well known energy-killer. Immediately after the BP spill, Obama issued a moratorium that prevented potential oil production. The ban, originally thrown out by a US District Judge, expired November 30th, 2010, but virtually no permits have been issued since—creating a de facto ban. On February 17th, the same judge ordered the Interior Department to act quickly on offshore drilling applications—calling the inaction "increasingly inexcusable." Not only have gas prices gone up as a result, jobs have been lost and businesses have gone bankrupt.

Onshore, the administration uses land designations to block oil and gas exploration and extraction. Right now the Dunes Sage Brush Lizard is threatening the entire economy of Southeastern New Mexico. The Fish and Wildlife Service has nominated the oil-rich region as critical habitat for the critter. Nearly a year ago, a Department of the Interior (DOI) list of “good candidates for National Monument designation under the Antiquities Act” was made public. Of the suggested locations, roughly half had known energy resources—to which the President can unilaterally restrict access through a National Monument designation. Additionally, in December of 2010, Interior Secretary Salazar circumvented Congress’s authority by creating a new designation: “Wild Lands”—which locks up lands without US citizens having a voice through our elected officials.

The “actions” are not just about oil and gas.

In late 2009, non-elected bureaucrats in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revoked a coal-mining permit in West Virginia issued to Arch Coal in 2007. Not only did the regulatory action stall the development of domestic energy, it hurts the American economy at time when we most need the jobs. The EPA is also tightening regulations that make coal-fueled electricity more expensive.

Despite Chu and Obama insisting they support nuclear power, actions suggest otherwise. While campaigning, Obama promised to shut down Yucca Mountain in Nevada—which was done in mid 2009. Without long-term storage of so-called nuclear “waste,” the administration will not allow any new nuclear power plants. Plus, the process is so prohibitive that no nuclear plant permits have been issued since Obama’s election. If nuclear power was a priority, plant construction that they say takes ten years, according to experts, could be done in half the time.

Nuclear power requires a source fuel: uranium—a mineral abundant in the US. But DOI and EPA actions bar new uranium mining in Arizona. The first new uranium mill in twenty-five years has been approved in Colorado, but construction, energy and jobs are being stalled by the EPA.

Not even renewable energy is immune. A new study reveals that 351 proposed energy projects in 49 states have been “delayed or cancelled” due to activism, permitting and “a system that allows for limitless lawsuits.” Of these, the study found that “almost half” are renewable energy projects.

Renewables, such as wind and solar, require vast quantities of metals and minerals. Yet, these, too, face regulatory barriers. A foreign company proposed to bring money into Montana’s economy by further drilling on a known deposit of tungsten—essential for steel (each wind turbine requires 335 tons of steel). The Forest Service would approve the permit if done with mules and pick axes instead of the modern equipment used there thirty-years ago.
_EnergyTribune

But this is just barely scraping the surface. A deeper look into the Obama EPA, DOI, DOE, NRC etc. would reveal top level government agencies full of ideologues, dedicated to the green ideals of reducing the human footprint on the Earth by any means necessary -- including poverty-inducing energy starvation. Everything these zealots do in the name of faux environmental hysteria has the full power of the US government behind it.

Politicians always say one thing and do another. And it is not impossible that Mr. Obama truly does feel the pain of those many Americans who suffer under his rule. As he twists the cold, sharp knife of energy starvation ever deeper....

More: If the US is to start building much-needed small modular nuclear reactors by the year 2020, they cannot delay. And Obama's NRC chief Jaczko is digging in his heels in order to delay development of newer, safer reactor designs -- even more so since the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear reactor incident.

If ever there is a time to promote new, safer nuclear energy, it is now. Unless your intention has been to stall and starve energy development all along.

Hydrogen has Very Low Energy Density; But H2 Still has Value

It is clear from the table of energy densities below, that the energy from a nuclear reaction such as fission far outstrips energy from chemical reactions such as combustion. But since it is neither practical nor safe to place a fission reactor in every household, every town, or every motor vehicle, there will always be a place for combustion reaction energy.

What fuels of combustion are most practicable, according to their energy density? The table gives us a few ideas. We will tend to avoid hydrogen gas for motor vehicles which require any significant range of travel, for example. For stationary applications -- such as fuel cell CHP generators and backup -- H2 can be valuable.

But an even greater value for H2 is for use in industrial processes, such as in turning low value bio-molecules into high value hydrocarbons [eg Neste], and in the refining of sour crude oil, among many other high-value processes. In other words, H2 production for the chemicals and fuel refining industries could become a lucrative enterprise.

Another common gas likely to grow in demand in the microbial fuels industry is CO2. Not dilute CO2 as in the measly 0.04% CO2 in the atmosphere. No. Clean, concentrated CO2 reagent grade, suitable to be fed to microbes and biomass crops (such as seaweed and giant king grass farms). Imagine getting rich from supplying H2 and CO2 to synth-fuels industries!
Source for the table of energy densities below

Material	Volumetric	Gravimetric
Fission of U-235	4.7x1012 Wh/l	2.5x1010 Wh/kg
Boron	38,278 Wh/l	16361 Wh/kg
JP10 (dicyclopentadiene)	10,975 Wh/l	11,694
Diesel	10,942 Wh/l	13,762 Wh/kg
Gasoline	9,700 Wh/l	12,200 Wh/kg			$0.0814/kwh 11-2007
Black Coal solid =>CO2	9444 Wh/l	6667 Wh/kg
LNG	7,216 Wh/l	12,100 Wh/kg
Propane (liquid)	7,050 +/-450 Wh/l	13,900 Wh/kg
Black Coal Bulk =>CO2	6278 Wh/l	6667 Wh/kg
Ethanol	6,100 Wh/l	7,850 Wh/kg
hydrazine (Mono-propellant)	5,426 Wh/l	5,373 Wh/kg
Thermite Fe2O3(s) + 2Al(s) -> Al2O3(s) + 2Fe(s) (mono fuel)	5,114 Wh/l	1,111 Wh/kg
Methanol	4,600 Wh/l	6,400 Wh/kg
Ammonia	4,325 Wh/l	4,318 Wh/kg
Sodium Borohydride Theoretical Hydrogen battery real is about 40% efficient	7,314 Wh/l theoretical 2,925 Wh/l real	7,100 Wh/kg theoretical 2,840 Wh/kg real
Liquid H2	2,600 Wh/l	39,000† Wh/kg
Hydrogen Peroxide 100% (mono-propellant rocket fuel) Often used at 30% or 90% and correspondingly less dense. when used, not all decomposes consider this a maximum	1,187 Wh/l	813 Wh/kg
LiFePO4	970 Wh/l	439 Wh/kg	1000 ? method not specified..
Wood Varies with type of wood and moisture content	700 +/-200 Wh/l	3154 +/-1554 Wh/kg
150 Bar H2	405 Wh/l	39,000 † Wh/kg
Secondary Lithium - ion Polymer	300 Wh/l ??	130 - 1200 Wh/kg
Secondary Lithium-Ion	300 Wh/l	110 Wh/kg
Primary Zinc-Air	240 Wh/l 1000Wh/l ??Best?	300 Wh/kg 440Wh/kg>
Dry ice sublimation	248 Wh/l	159 Wh/kg
Primary Lithium Sulfur Dioxide	190 Wh/l	170 Wh/kg
Nickel Metal Hydride (not discounted for high discharge rates)	100 Wh/l	60 Wh/kg
Wood pellets (pelletizing energy subtracted?)	100 †† Wh/l	4,700 Wh/kg
Flywheel	210 Wh/l	120 Wh/kg
Ice to water	92.6 Wh/l	92.6 Wh/kg
Liquid N2	68 Wh/l	55 Wh/kg
Lead Acid Battery	40 Wh/l	25 Wh/kg	300		$1.58/kWh
Propane (Gas - 1 bar)	28.1 Wh/l	13,900 Wh/kg
Compressed Air	17 Wh/l	34 Wh/kg
STP H2	2.7 Wh/l	39,000 † Wh/kg
Boost cap	1.72 Wh/l	2.98 Wh/kg

Table Source

University of Washington scientists are devising ways to rev up H2 production using photosynthetic microbes.

As discussed previously, artificial photosynthesis methods (artificial leaves) also split water to produce H2 (and O2).

University of Minnesota researchers are using microbes to produce fuels with sunlight and CO2. In this case the microbes are splitting water to produce hydrogen, and fixing carbon from CO2 to build biomass and specific product. But the pathetically small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will simply not do. They will need to buy lots and lots of pure CO2 -- perhaps from you?

BARD of Morrisville, PA, intends to hit the algal fuels market in a big and fast way! Assuming BARD spokespersons are honest in their claims, they will need a HUGE amount of CO2 to produce their algal fuels. Where will they get it? How much are they willing to pay?

Innovative Energy Inc. from the St. Louis, MO, neighborhood, manufactures gasifiers capable of taking any carbonaceous material and turning it into syngas -- to generate power and process heat. Of course, one of the components of syngas is H2. Tweaking the gasifier and feedstock can alter the composition of your syngas according to desired product -- for immediate combustion or for later use in catalytic synthesis of fuels and chemicals.

University of Connecticut researchers have developed continuous process reactors to quickly and efficiently separate glycerine from biodiesel in biodiesel processing plants. But of course a better way of making biodiesel (besides esterification) is via the use of hydrotreating with H2 -- if you have the H2!

Highmark Renewables Research of Canada is developing an anaerobic digester to be used in conjunction with multiple other bio-reactors for producing multiple bio-fuels. Of course, this is the way of the future in biofuels and bioreactor companies -- combine and conquer.

While you may not see the same company owning the full cluster of diverse and complementary bioreactors, you will begin to see more co-location of various types of bioreactors and feedstock pre-processing, processing, refining, and more sophisticated catalytic synthesis.

And always, you will find H2 and CO2 to be in high demand. Remember in the California gold rush, when the people who made the most money were those who provided the miners with both the dry goods and the wet goods which the miners needed and craved? Most of the miners themselves went bankrupt.

Let that be a lesson to you. ;-)

More on the Follies of the Green Energy Economy

1. First, green energy is diffuse, and it takes a tremendous amount of land and material to harness even a little bit of energy. Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment and senior research associate at Rockefeller University, calculates, for instance, that the entire state of Connecticut (that is, if Connecticut were as windy as the southeastern Colorado plains) would need to be devoted to wind turbines to power the city of New York.
   
2. 
   Second, it is extremely costly. In 2016 President Obama's own Energy Information Administration estimates that onshore wind (the least expensive of these green energies) will be 80% more expensive than combined cycle, gas-fired electricity. And that doesn't account for the costs associated with the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new transmission systems that would be necessary to get wind and solar energy--which is generally produced far from where consumers happen to live--to ratepayers.
3. 
   
   Third, it is unreliable. The wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine when the energy is needed. We account for that today by having a lot of coal and natural gas generation on "standby" to fire-up when renewables can't produce. Incidentally, the cost of maintaining this backup generation is likewise never fully accounted for in the cost estimates associated with green energy. But in a world where fossil fuels are a thing of the past, we would be forced--like the peasants of the Dark Age--to rely upon the vagaries of the weather.
4. 
   
   Fourth, it is scarce. While wind and sunlight are obviously not scarce, the real estate where those energies are reliably continuous and in economic proximity to ratepayers is scarce.
5. 
   
   Finally, once the electricity is produced by the sun or wind, it cannot be stored because battery technology is not currently up to the task. Hence, we must immediately "use it or lose it."

_Forbes

This is rather basic and superficial logic, just scratching the surface layer of problems with big wind and big solar. It is quite easy to dig just a little deeper, exposing more fatal flaws in the "green economy" than even an energy undertaker could appreciate.

Wind turbines are fine and expensive machines. But placing these fine machines out in the elements (even out in the turbulent and corrosive salt seas) is a quick road to machine hell and destruction. Expensive gearboxes tend to breakdown in a matter of years, rather than decades, and blades are prone to develop cracks and fail catastrophically -- endangering anything and anyone within an alarming large radius.

The noise and vibration of these giant turbines in motion makes them unsuitable for installation anywhere near residences. Ice collects on the turbine blades, presenting further hazards. A vast and enormously expensive webbed mass of copper conductors have to be strung or laid to transport this dilute and unreliable energy to more central substations. And in the coldest of weather, you cannot count on wind turbines to keep you warm -- since the wind often stops at just that time of greatest need.

And on it goes. Big solar is even worse than big wind.

Consult Ted Rockwell, David Mackay, John Droz, Carbon Sense, etc. for many more reasons why the green energy economy is suited for dummies and the coming Idiocracy.

Microwave Pyrolysis for a Wide Range of Feedstocks

Used crankcase oil from internal combustion engines can be turned into valuable fuels, using microwave pyrolysis.

That dirty motor oil that comes out of your car or truck engine during oil changes could end up in your fuel tank, according to a report presented here today at the 241st National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). It described development of a new process for recycling waste crankcase oil into gasoline-like fuel — the first, they said, that uses microwaves and has “excellent potential” for going into commercial use.

“Transforming used motor oil into gasoline can help solve two problems at once,” said study leader Howard Chase, Professor of Biochemical Engineering at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “It provides a new use for a waste material that’s too-often disposed of improperly, with harm to the environment. In addition, it provides a supplemental fuel source for an energy-hungry world.” _ACS

Worldwide, the potential amount of used motor oil feedstock is estimated to be about 8 billion gallons.

Microwave pyrolysis of waste rubber tyres

Microwave pyrolysis of waste plastics (PDF) to fuels and chemicals

Microwave pyrolysis of wood pellets (abs)

Microwave pyrolysis of sewage sludge (abs)

Microwave pyrolysis of corn stover (PDF)

Microwave pyrolysis of kerogen oil shale

And so on. Microwave pyrolysis can also be used on meat packing animal waste and other organic materials. Oynklent Green [OTC:OYNK] has developed a method of using microwave pyrolysis to convert corrupt politicians to useful fuel and energy. There is seemingly no end to the potential feedstocks for these processes!

"Artificial Leaf" Hype

Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy — development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy. _ACS

The problem with this announcement at the 241st ACS national meet is that the basic technology is decades old. An MIT scientist, Daniel Nocera, has apparently devised a new mix of catalysts -- including nickel and cobalt -- to facilitate the photonic separation of H2 and O2 from water. The device has run continuously for 45 hours without loss of output. Great things are expected...yada, yada, yada....

Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day, Nocera said. It does so by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen.

The hydrogen and oxygen gases would be stored in a fuel cell, which uses those two materials to produce electricity, located either on top of the house or beside it. _ACS

Nocera suggests that his device might allow third world villages in Africa etc. to produce their own electricity. And yet the requirement for fuel cells -- still exorbitantly expensive -- will prevent all but the wealthiest villages from even thinking about taking that approach. How fortunate that Case Western Reserve researchers are using nano-tubes to reduce the cost of fuel cells by perhaps a factor of half.

It will be nice to achieve the cheap photonic splitting of water -- and further, the cheap splitting of CO2. Nature achieves both as starting points and no one issues a press release or makes announcements at national meetings.

When we finally do get cheap sources of H2, it is likely that we will use it in industrial processes, for the production of chemicals and fuels to substitute for petroleum and other fossil hydrocarbons. The "hydrogen economy" jive is another source of endless hype that has been oversold since at least the 1960s.

If Nocera and his academic kin truly wish to help the villagers of the third world, the best place to start would be in providing them ways to live more independently of bloody tyrants and dictators, and give them more property rights to their personal production. A permanent "smart drug" like NZT -- except longer lasting -- would also help the third world enormously, given the clear regional discrepancies in measured intelligence and intellectual achievement.

Green Luddites: Fighting Delusions with Delusions

On one side, green Luddites treasure delusions of carbon catastrophe and energy resource depletion doom. On the other side, they intend to utilise "green energy" such as big wind and big solar, to combat the prior twin delusions of doom. Unfortunately, green energy -- big wind and big solar -- is one of the biggest delusions of them all, certainly nowhere near ready for prime time.

If you define grid parity as "delivering electricity whenever you want, in whatever volumes you want," says David Victor, the director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego, then today's new renewables aren't even close.

...we are probably not just a few breakthroughs away from deploying cheaper, cleaner energy sources on a massive scale. Though few question the value of developing new energy technologies, scaling them up will be so difficult and expensive that many policy experts say such advances alone, without the help of continuing government subsidies and other incentives, will make little impact on our energy mix. Regardless of technological advances, these experts are skeptical that renewables are close to achieving grid parity, or that batteries are close to allowing an electric vehicle to compete with gas-powered cars on price and range.

...Although some alternative energy technologies might eventually achieve grid parity, few, if any, can survive without subsidies now, as they improve their cost and efficiency. Even with subsidies, including tax incentives and cash grants, most are struggling to narrow the cost gap with fossil fuels....Deploying energy alternatives will be far more expensive and, in some ways, far more difficult than inventing new ones. Given today's political climate and the lack of a coherent energy policy around the world, it might truly take a miracle. _TechnologyReview

It is not very difficult to believe in miracles, if you are delusional enough. And we know that lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgy greens are plenty delusional in a multi-faceted way.

So even though the obsession with green energy by government, media, academia, foundations, philanthropists, and the faux environmental movement is costing you a lot of money and wasting a lot of today's resources which will be sorely missed tomorrow, you may as well sit back and enjoy it for the entertainment value. If Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Jackie Chan, and other slapstick comedians can entertain us -- why not relax and allow the loony delusions of the green establishment do the same?

For more information on the follies of wind energy, see John Droz, or Ted Rockwell. You will never again look at big wind energy in the same way.

Antidote to Nuclear Hysteria: Carnival of Nukes #45

Idaho Samizdat provides the 45th installment on the series of Nuclear Blog Carnivals. This edition is dominated by Japan's nuclear reactor crisis at the Fukushima plant, along with some global ramifications of the local crisis. Here are some excerpts:

Margaret Harding – Four Factor Consulting
Fukushima is not a disaster movie

Events at the power plants in Japan, have been unfolding for ten days and counting and so far, no member of the public has died, or even been hurt. In our modern, fast paced age, we want our events to happen in quick sound bites, not long novels. When things take more than that requisite few hours, we turn it into a disaster movie.
The Optimist’s conundrum

An optimist and a pessimist both look at a situation. The pessimist says: “It is going to fail. A terrible tragedy. People will die.” The optimist says: “It’s OK, it will work. No one will die.” Events unfold. Things neither one predicted happen. The situation resolves and all can see the result.

Pop Atomic Studios
Coming Together in Light of Fukushima

Suzy Hobbs writes I want to challenge everyone in the nuclear industry to take special interest in working together and cooperating in creative ways. I have been deeply inspired both by the Japanese citizens effected by Fukushima, and a small hand full of nuclear professionals who have taken time off work and stood up at a time when the rest of the industry was silent. _IS

Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are often designed with fail-safe shutdown mode, allowing them to safely shut down automatically in a natural disaster.

Nothing better brings out the stupidity of a dumbed-down public than to ask it a simple question about nuclear power.

The Rossi Focardi reactor continues developing behind the scenes.

US Has Massive Energy Resources: #1 In the World

EnergyTribune
A new report from the Congressional Research Service points out that in terms of total hydrocarbon resource, the US possesses the largest inventory of any nation on Earth. But under the Obama regime, an unstated but unrelenting program of "energy starvation" is being carried out -- from the DOE to the Department of Interior to the EPA, even including the NRC. It is one thing to be energy-poor because you lack the resources. It is quite another to intentionally cripple your own economy using half-baked policies of carbon hysteria, nuclear fear, and faux environmental crisis fabrication.

America’s combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CSR), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined – and that’s without including America’s shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates.

...if the White House is in any way serious about impacting the economic Black Hole that is the burgeoning national debt, reinvigorating business big-time, creating real jobs and restoring ebbing national wealth, the best shot by a distance if you’re American ... well, you’re standing on it, or rather above it.

...While the US is often depicted as having only a tiny minority of the world’s oil reserves at around 28 billion barrels (based on the somewhat misleading figure of ‘proven reserves’) according to the CRS in reality it has around 163 billion barrels. As Inhofe’s EPW press release comments, “That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years”. Next up, there’s coal. The CRS report reveals America’s reserves of coal are unsurpassed, accounting for over 28 percent of the world’s coal. Much of it is high quality too. The CRS estimates US recoverable coal reserves at around 262 billion tons (not including further massive, difficult to access, Alaskan reserves). Given the US consumes around 1.2 billion tons a year, that’s a couple of centuries of coal use, at least.

...In 2009 the CRS upped its 2006 estimate of America’s enormous natural gas deposits by 25 percent to around 2,047 trillion cubic feet, a conservative figure given the expanding shale gas revolution. At current rates of use that’s enough for around 100 years. Then there is still the, as yet largely publicly untold, story of methane hydrates to consider, a resource which the CRS reports alludes to as “immense...possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels.” According to the Inhofe’s EPW, “For perspective, if just 3 percent of this resource can be commercialized ... at current rates of consumption, that level of supply would be enough to provide America’s natural gas for more than 400 years.”

...With 85 percent of global energy set to come from fossil fuels till at least 2035 no matter what wishful thinkers may prefer, current US energy policy – much like European – is pure political pantomime. _EnergyTribune

New Roads to Fuels, Thanks to Over-Hyped Crude Oil Prices

For the US, the huge and growing alternative to crude oil is Canada's oil sands. New mines and refineries are being installed in Canada, and new pipelines are being built to deliver the product to US refineries and customers. Many of the environmental concerns over oil sands development are being answered by evolving new technologies.

More: Suncor and Total are teaming up to accelerate oil sands development

Another promising approach to liquid fuels is gas-to-liquids (GTL). The new Pearl GTL plant in Qatar is beginning preliminary operation.

Making syngas. In the gasifier at around 2,200-2,650°F (1,400-1,600°C) methane and oxygen from an air separation plant are converted into a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as synthesis gas, or syngas. The reaction produces heat, which is recovered to produce steam for power.

Making liquid waxy hydrocarbons. The synthesis gas enters one of 24 reactors. Each reactor holds a large number of tubes containing a Shell proprietary cobalt synthesis catalyst. The catalyst serves to speed up the chemical reaction in which the synthesis gas is converted into long-chained waxy hydrocarbons and water.

The total surface area of the microscopic holes in the catalyst granules is more than eighteen times the surface area of Qatar. Placed end-to-end the tubes would stretch from Qatar to Japan. The synthesis process generates heat, which is also used to produce steam that in turn powers the GTL plant via steam turbines. All water in the GTL process is purified and reused in the utilities system of the plant to generate steam.

Shell’s catalyst company, CRI/Criterion, spent around four years using dedicated facilities in Europe in full-time production to provide the thousands of tonnes of catalysts needed for the start of production at Pearl GTL.

Making GTL (gas to liquids) products. Using another Shell proprietary catalyst, the long hydrocarbon molecules from the GTL reactor are contacted with hydrogen and cut (cracked) into a range of smaller molecules of different length and shape. Distillation separates out the products with different boiling points. _GCC

Other emerging alternatives to crude oil made more economically viable by artificially boosted oil prices also includes the coming wave of advanced biofuels: both cellulosic and algal. The cellulosic-derived fuels will require large volumes of biomass, such as designed tree farms or advanced grasses and seaweeds might deliver. Although the energy density of biomass is less than that of oil, gas, or coal, nature just keeps producing year after year. Many locations which are ideal for growing biomass do not have readily available fossil fuels.

Other alternatives include the processing of kerogens to liquids -- oil shale refining, coal to liquids, and waste to liquids. The technology for all of those approaches is improving thanks to investment spurred by high oil prices.

Continue to look into these possibilities, if you want to understand why -- at least on the supply side -- all the glib predictions of $200 a barrel oil in 2011 might have been self-serving. As for the demand side, things are bleak in the US under Obama, and conditions in Europe and China are not much better. Japan has a lot of re-building to do and will need more hydrocarbons to replace the loss of power production from nuclear plants, at least in the short to intermediate term. But Japan's population is shrinking rapidly, and long term demand from Japan can only decline.

Don't get so caught up in peak oil hysteria (and carbon hysteria) that you forget to breathe.

Dyadic Lays Siege to Sugar Market: Sugars from Biomass

The worldwide market for sugars (cane, beets, maize) may exceed $100 billion annually, perhaps half used for food and half used for fuel. But recent achievements by Dyadic International Inc. may change the calculus of the world sugar market in ways impossible to anticipate. Here is more information on Dyadic's new product:

Dyadic International, Inc., a global biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, manufacture and sale of enzyme and protein products for the bioenergy, industrial enzyme and biopharmaceutical industries, has introduced its most advanced biofuels enzyme, AlternaFuel CMAX. Dyadic says that AlternaFuel CMAX has proven to be effective in converting multiple forms of biomass into fermentable sugars.

Dyadic has developed an integrated technology platform to rapidly discover and express genes of both eukaryotic and prokaryotic origin, then efficiently and inexpensively manufacturing the products of those genes. The company uses a number of proprietary fungal strains to produce enzymes and other biomaterials, principally focused on a system for protein production based on the patented Chrysosporium lucknowense fungus, known as C1. Dyadic has recently completed its scale-up of AlternaFuel CMAX which was derived from Dyadic’s C1 platform technology. _GCC

There is no way of knowing whether Dyadic is "the guy" who will transform world sugar production by making the valuable substances cheaply out of agricultural and forestry waste. Someone will do it, sooner or later. When that happens, the entire economics of cane, beets, and maize will be transformed.

Even if the biomass sugars are not useful for food, the fermentable fuels market is quite likely to explode once the sugar feedstock achieves a relatively low and stable price point. When fed ample sugars of the proper type, microbes will work tirelessly -- producing valuable by-product 24 hours a day while multiplying exponentially.

There is no telling what cheap sugars will do to world markets. But those who continue to waste time (their own and others') fretting about "food vs fuels" will clearly be living in the past long before they are aware of the fact.