Vinod Khosla Summarizes Vast Field of Biofuel Companies

Vinod Khosla is an important venturist godfather of the biofuels industry. In a recent Greentechmedia article, Khosla summarizes the field, and looks at some particular advantages and disadvantages. The table below comes from the GTM article.

Table 1: Major Biofuel Technology Pathways

Pathway	Feedstock	Outputs	Comments	FCU (minimum size cash flow positive facility)[1]
Liquid fermentation to higher alcohols, hydrocarbons and esters Examples: LS9, Gevo, Amyris, Solazyme	Sugars (e.g., corn, sugar cane, hydrolysis  sugars from cellulosic feedstocks)	Highly controlled, single chemical output, pathway dependent (e.g., iso-butanol, FAME, Esters, lipids, Farnesene) fuels are less likely to be economic if they need significant post-processing. Direct production of fuel blends like butanol or FAME may allow for earlier entry into fuels.  Costs are less critical for chemicals.	Suitable for specialty chemicals and specialty fuels (e.g., jet). Starting to build first commercial units: target 2012 to 2013. Need to reach commercial yields at demo, and test 2,000-gallon-tank scale to prove economics or 100K gallon/year facility scale to have reliable data; many do; various chemical outputs give them options.	Retrofits/bolt-ons costing $40M to $100M to cash flow facility. Varies widely, but small $ allows low-risk bootup. Companies that require new facilities will have difficulty booting up unless facility is very low cost.
Liquid fermentation of cellulosic feedstocks to ethanol Examples: Mascoma, Verenium, Qteros, (Novozymes, Danisco)	Sugars via hydrolysis of cellulosic material (described below)	Ethanol	Enzymatic processes such as Novozymes are unlikely to be competitive. Cheap cellulosic sugars may help enable these pathways. In Mascoma’s case, use of CBP (consolidated bioprocessing) helps alleviate the high cost of enzymes and may have lowest cost in this class, but none are economic yet.	$175M to $300M
Gas fermentation Examples: Lanzatech, Coskata, Ineos	Steel/coal waste gas; syngas from biomass or coal	Highly controlled, single or multi chemical output (e.g., ethanol,  2,3-Butanediol, & other specialty chemicals)	High capex for biomass, but low opex; low capex  & opex for waste gases; suitable for ethanol, more upside in chemicals; FCU in 2012 to 2013	$400M to $500M for commercial plant with biomass gasification including fermentation; $50M to $100M for backend waste gas conversion
Catalyzed thermo-chemical cracking Example: KiOR	Lignocellulosic biomass, all types, from wood whole logs, ag & wood wastes, algae  etc.	Relatively easy “drop-in” renewable crude oil. With hydrotreating, can produce fuel blendstock	Scalable process, familiar to oil industry. Similar supply chain and uses, FCU operational in 2011 to 12; likely to be competitive unsubsidized near term at $80 oil; high-value distillates	$75M to $125M
Solar fuels Examples: Sapphire, Cellana, Aurora Algae, General Atomics, Petro algae	Waste water,  CO2 + sunlight	Lipids that can be converted to biodiesel (FAME, green diesel, jet fuel or other), or nutraceuticals	No clear near term path to economic viability. High theoretical yields per acre (>4,000 gal/acre), but not proven. Pilot and demonstration scale.  We are skeptical of economics in this category; larger environmental risk for GMO open pond organisms	Hundreds of millions(?)
Natural oil hydro-treatment to produce hydrocarbons Example: Dynamic Fuels	Natural oils and fats (palm, vegetable, animal fat, etc.)	Hydrocarbon fuels	Limited scalability due to feedstock	~$100M to $150M
Pyrolysis oil hydro-treatment to produce hydrocarbons Examples: UOP/Ensyn, Neste	Wood chips and wood waste	Hydrocarbon fuels	Significant hydro-treating required due to high oxygen content to produce hydrocarbons	~$100M to $200M(?)
Transesterification of vegetable oils, animal fats	Natural oils and fats (palm, vegetable, animal, etc.)	Biodiesel	Limited scalability. Often food-based and likely less economic. Land use concerns due to low yield.
Gasification with thermochemical conversion to ethanol, methanol and hydrocarbons Examples: Choren, Rentech, Range	Cellulose/ hemicellulose/lignin	Syngas for fermentation, or for chemical catalysis conversion to ethanol, methanol, or Fischer Tropsch to hydrocarbons	Chemical catalysis for ethanol and Fischer Tropsch likely uneconomic. High capex, high opex.	Hundreds of millions
Liquid Catalytic conversion of sugars to hydrocarbons Example: Virent	Sugars (e.g., corn, sugar cane, hydrolysis  sugars from cellulosic feedstocks)	Hydrocarbon fuels	Limited information available, clean sugars and hydrogen appear required for good  outputs. I am somewhat skeptical but have to admit less than full knowledge of details.	unknown

The vast field of biofuels companies cannot be adequately followed by oneself. It requires many analysts working simultaneously, painstakingly compiling information in an attempt to keep up with advances, and possible shenannigans.

It is best to read both advocates and skeptics of this commercial movement, just like with any other trend which promises (or threatens) to overturn the current order.

A Brief Look at Coal

The energy we get from coal today comes from the energy that plants absorbed from the sun millions of years ago. All living plants store solar energy through a process known as photosynthesis. When plants die, this energy is usually released as the plants decay. Under conditions favourable to coal formation, the decaying process is interrupted, preventing the release of the stored solar energy. The energy is locked into the coal.
Coal formation began during the Carboniferous Period - known as the first coal age - which spanned 360 million to 290 million years ago. The build-up of silt and other sediments, together with movements in the earth's crust - known as tectonic movements - buried swamps and peat bogs, often to great depths. With burial, the plant material was subjected to high temperatures and pressures. This caused physical and chemical changes in the vegetation, transforming it into peat and then into coal. _worldcoal.org

Images from World Coal OrgProven coal reserves are sufficient to meet world demand at current levels for about 120 years. But proven coal reserves are only a fraction of the total coal resource. Proven reserves are apt to expand significantly should the need ever arise.

Resource	The amount of coal that may be present in a deposit or coalfield. This does not take into account the feasibility of mining the coal economically. Not all resources are recoverable using current technology.
Reserves	Reserves can be defined in terms of proved (or measured) reserves and probable (or indicated) reserves. Probable results have been estimated with a lower degree of confidence than proved reserves.
Proved Reserves	Reserves that are not only considered to be recoverable but can also be recovered economically. This means they take into account what current mining technology can achieve and the economics of recovery. Proved reserves will therefore change according to the price of coal; if the price of coal is low proved reserves will decrease.

_worldcoal.org

The chart above displays global reserves of coal, gas, and oil by region. As with coal, gas and oil reserves are ranked as proved or not proved. Proved reserves are apt to increase as economic conditions and technological sophistication changes. A good example of that is the huge expansion of shale energy resulting from improvements in horizontal drilling and fraccing technologies.

US coal deposits as currently understood are pictured above. The US has the largest coal resource of any single nation. In addition, the US has the largest overall hydrocarbon resource, when kerogens are included. Canada and Russia belong in the same category of top ranked overall hydrocarbon resource nations. Persian Gulf nations are in the "enviable" position of having more easily accessible, economically valuable, and readily usable hydrocarbon resources.

Coal varies in quality, depending upon its life history during formation. An important thing to remember is that even the cheapest and dirtiest coal can be utilised cleanly with gasification technologies. Cheap dirty coal can be cleanly utilised via IGCC with CHP, or via coal to liquids technologies with also utilise gasification.

Another means of utilising dirty and/or hard to get to coal, is via in situ gasification. That approach is being explored in Alaska, Canada, and China -- and has been tested in Europe and New Zealand.

It is believed that the coal resource is the largest hydrocarbon resource of all. But that is unlikely to be true, given the little-known mechanisms of hydrocarbon production and transformation inside the Earth's mantle -- which feeds hydrocarbon of unknown quantity (mostly wet gas) back into the crust. Much of that mantle-originated gas is likely to end up as methane clathrates beneath sea sediments -- the bulk of which has almost certainly been recycled many times via plate tectonics.

The planet's carbon cycle is far more vast and deep than most analysts understand, involving organic and non-organic carbons. Photosynthetic microbes and plants are key to the global cycling of carbon -- as are unimaginably powerful geologic processes. The Earth is floating in hydrocarbons.

If humans are smart, they will move beyond their dependency on hydrocarbons as fuels within the next several decades. At that point, the total cumulative human consumption of the global hydrocarbon resource will have been a tiny drop in a very big bucket.

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions vs Blacklight Power

"Cold fusion" and Blacklight Power have been two of the less reputable approaches to generating energy. Cloaked in mystery and proprietary methods and materials, to outsiders both approaches seem custom-made for investment scamming. And yet neither approach seems likely to go away soon. In fact, a whole new upswell of interest in unconventional energy sources has been pouring out of Italy over the past week.

First of all, "cold fusion" is not a good description for what Rossi and Focardi seem to be doing.

Whatever the LENRs that are responsible for the device’s heat output, nickel-hydrogen reactions are not fusion, so this has nothing to do with the idea of “cold fusion.”

Researcher Jacques Dufour, retired from Shell and now a contractor with the French Laboratoire Des Sciences Nucléaires (CNAM), has speculated on neutron or proton capture on nickel to explain the mechanism. Unfortunately, proton capture requires astronomical forces to overcome the Coulomb barrier and is effectively invoking “cold fusion.”

Neutron capture, on the other hand, is different and theoretically feasible. In his conclusion, Dufour has cited the Widom-Larsen theory, published in the mainstream press by the European Physics Journal C, Pramana, and the American Chemical Society. The theory has also been cited by NASA, Johns Hopkins University and the Institute of Science in Society. (See New Energy Times Widom-Larsen Theory Portal for papers and references.)

“Strong nuclear signatures are expected from the Rossi energy amplifier,” Dufour writes. “It is of interest to note that in [Widom Larsen 'Theoretical Standard Model Rates of Proton to Neutron Conversions Near Metallic Hydride Surfaces'] a mechanism is proposed that strongly suppresses the gamma emission during the run (it is the same mechanism that creates very low energy neutrons, subsequently captured by the nickel).” _NewEnergyTimes

Neutron capture would describe a form of "transmutation." Rossi and Focardi are claiming that their energy-generating device involves the transmutation of nickel to copper. They are not claiming any form of fusion.

Still, a lot of people don't want to let go of the "cold fusion" idea, but if the mechanism is proven to generate as much excess heat as is claimed -- an energy gain of over 20 to 1 -- successful developers should be allowed to call it whatever they wish. More:

...while mainstream science spurns cold fusion vehemently, a maverick minority has been pursuing it with just as much passion; holding international conferences, publishing papers in their margin journals, and comparing notes.

And they don't like calling it "cold fusion," both because of the stigma attached to that phrase, as well as the inaccuracy of the name from a strict interpretation point of view. It's most often called a "Low Energy Nuclear Reaction" or LENR.

With Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi announcing in a press conference and demonstration last Friday that they had a device that produces 10 kilowatts of energy (enough to power five homes), and that they were now going into production with the patented technology; you can imagine that the LENR community has been abuzz with interest about this amazing disclosure. Though there has been plenty of skepticism, the general tone seems to be increasingly positive, as can be seen in the excerpts below.

Three of the premier media sources in that arena are Jed Rothwell's LENR-CANR.org, Steven Krivit's New Energy Times, and Infinite Energy. A sampling of they're take on this is represented here. There are other players in the cold fusion journalistic world as well, including those that cater to non-English-speaking audiences. _Pure Energy Systems News

Speculations about possible similarities between Rossi/Focardi and Blacklight Power:

Rossi received a patent, but he says that it does not contain proprietary information on the catalysts used in the device and the special processes utilized to prepare the powdered nickel. Speculation on the internet continues as to what these catalysts may be and what special processes may be utilized. One possibility that has been suggested is that sodium hydride (NaH) may be mixed in with the nano sized nickel powder. The hypothesis is that the NaH when heated would release hydrogen that would interact with the nickel powder. After this occurs the cell would be allowed to cool slightly (perhaps the need for a controllable input) to regenerate the NaH which would absorb hydrogen. Then the cycle would begin once again.

Such a cycle would be similar to some of the experiments performed by Black Light Power. Additional ideas include special methods to "clean" the nickel powder of impurities, a method that embeds the nickel powder in a ceramic that may act like a catalyst, and other methods.

It has been suggested on some internet forums that due to the fact that his patent is absent of such important information, it may not be enforceable and this may partially explain his need for total secrecy about these special processes and methods.

These emerging bits of information, technical details, interviews, and accounts of the demonstration are making the argument in favor of this technology being legitimate more compelling. As the days progress we urge you to follow this story closely. _PESN

Rossi's work supposedly involves a low energy nuclear reaction -- perhaps a transmutation via neutron addition. Blacklight Power, on the other hand, claims to be dealing with the energy states of the electron in a hydrogen atom. But even if some kind of excess heat energy is being generated, there is no guarantee that the claimed theory is an accurate description of what is happening.

Brian Wang has been following this story closely
Extensive (148 pp) PDF description of low energy nuclear reactions (h/t NextBigFuture)

When confronted with claims such as come from Blacklight Power or Focardi/Rossi, one must remain skeptical. And yet it is important to attempt to follow research progress and commentary as provided by objective-but-interested persons familiar with the basic theories involved.

Clean and abundant resources of energy will be discovered and commercially developed, in time. But modern western societies are in the unfortunate position of having their energy supplies unnecessarily constricted by political leaders, for ideological reasons masquerading as science. The effect of such policies include economic stagnation and a generalised "societal malaise" and an absence of a positive sense of future. These problems tend to feed upon each other and escalate in severity over time -- particularly when political leaders are corrupt and waste vast public resources -- both present and future -- merely to remain in power.

The bottom line is that when claims sound exaggerated, they usually are. It is best not to get one's hopes up prematurely. Be skeptical, but check in on progress from time to time, just in case something important is actually happening.

PESWiki page on Focardi/Rossi

New Energy Times blog

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions News

"Journal of Nuclear Physics" blog a "peer reviewed blog" run by Rossi dealing with Rossi's work

Blacklight Power technical papers

None of the sources listed above represent the physics mainstream, but if you read through the 148 pp PDF introduction on low energy nuclear reactions from New Energy Times, you should have an idea what questions to ask, what to look for, and what may be going on.

Al Fin energy analysts recommend not counting on this development to provide appreciable power supplies for a number of decades at least. But they admit they are slowly becoming addicted to speculating on such unconventional physical mechanisms as a diversion.

Adapted from an article at Al Fin

Carnival of the Nukes #36 at ANS Nuclear Cafe

The 36th edition of the Carnival of Nuclear Energy is hosted at ANS Nuclear Cafe. Here are some excerpts.

Mike Blake of Nuclear News talks about the growing support for nuclear energy in the United States. He ties this support to dramatic changes in nuclear power management and regulation over the past 30 years and discusses the Top 5 improvements in the U.S. nuclear energy industry.

Nuke Power Talk

Many people in the nuclear industry are looking to the new Congress and hoping for action in some key areas to help jump-start the nuclear industry. Having lived and worked inside the Beltway for more years than I care to admit to any more, I’d like to caution everyone that the Washington scene is extraordinarily complicated.

NuclearGreen

• Rediscovering Weinberg’s vision
• Alvin Weinberg and the Molten Salt Reactor

Alvin Weinberg - photo Oak Ridge National Laboratory

In “Rediscovering Weinberg’s Vision,” Charles Barton recounts how Alvin Weinberg’s death lead him to recover Weinberg’s vision of the role of energy in society. Charles notes his own childhood relationship with the Weinberg family, and his year as “a glorified Intern” with the ORNL-NSF Environmental Studies program.  In contrast to Amory Lovins whose predictions were almost never correct, many of Alvin Weinberg’s predictions about energy have proven correct.

In his post, “Alvin Weinberg and the Molten Salt Reactor,” Charles Barton recounts how his rediscovery of Alvin Weinberg’s vision lead him to look anew at the Molten Salt Reactor. Charles found a number of Weinberg’s papers on Molten Salt Reactors on Kirk Sorensen’s Blog, Energy from Thorium. An account of Weinberg’s management style is included as well as an extensive quote from a Weinberg essay on the Molten Salt Breeder Reactor.

Atomic Insights

For Sale – Nuclear Power Plant for less than $1,500 per kilowatt that can be running in about 5 years.

Based on a number of private conversations, I have learned that Exelon would be willing to sell the Zion Nuclear Station if a qualified buyer made a reasonable offer. For about $3 billion and a few years of challenging work, the buyer would have a refurbished, 2100 MWe nuclear plant with a fresh, 20 year operating license. A reasonable estimate is that the plant could be producing revenue by 2016.

_Much more at NukeCarnival36

Areva is developing a 100 MW SMR, one version of which may evolve into an underwater nuclear reactor!

Areva has already begun developing a small modular reactor, or SMR, of about 100 MW, based on the experience of its Technicatome unit in building reactor plants for submarines and France's nuclear-power aircraft carrier, the Charles De Gaulle. Such a reactor could be embarked in a FlexBlue power plant, Boissier said.

Boissier said the market for SMRs is estimated at about 200 units worldwide over the next 20 years. "Flexblue could take a significant share" of that market, he said, but declined to define what he meant by significant.

He said the study will determine how much a FlexBlue plant would cost and what would be the price of electricity it produced, but added "preliminary studies show that we should be compatible with the cost of renewable energies, and better than solar power." _Platts

SMR developer NuScale is forced to suspend operations for the time being due to problems with an investor

The dual "fission-fusion" nuclear reactor being developed at the U. of Texas promises to eliminate future problems with nuclear waste or weapons proliferation.

Brian Wang provides links to all editions of the Carnival of Nuclear Energy

Joule Unlimited Scores Loads of Free Publicity!

A synthetic biofuels company from Massachusetts called "Joule Unlimited" has managed to score tons of free publicity in newspapers, blogs, and news services -- without doing much at all! This is public relations at its finest, and the PR people at Joule have to be congratulated.

Joule is involved in the synthetic genomics of cyanobacteria -- having obtained patents to engineer the production of hydrocarbon fuels from bacteria using CO2 and sunlight. But in the news business, most journalists are always asking a potential news focus: "What have you done for me lately?" And in the case of Joule, the answer is "Not much at all."

It all started when the Globe & Mail had a story on Joule a few days ago which erroneously claimed that Joule's miracle bacterium was E. Coli -- after several people notified the paper of their error, they finally corrected it. But not before scores of blogs and other news sources repeated the G&M mistake verbatim. But the Globe & Mail story was about something that happened -- a patent approval -- in September 2010. So why did it take off in January 2011?

A respectable fusion energy forum -- Talk Polywell -- picked the story up, and it then spread. Respected blogger and engineer M. Simon picked up the story from Talk Polywell. Then Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds picked up the story from M. Simon. And from there the story spreads across the blogosphere...

But what has Joule Unlimited actually done lately to merit this new publicity?

Well, they elected John Podesta to their board of directors.

They somehow got dufus Senator John Kerry to call Joule's technology "a game changer."

Then, way back in September 2010 Joule is awarded a patent on its technology

Al Fin analysts can be heard muttering: "Not much progress for all of that free publicity."

Microbial bioenergy is indeed a game changer. But Joule Unlimited is only one of many fine companies with very fine research and development staffs who are working hard to bring large scale microbial fuels to reality. How did Joule's PR department trigger this isolated inflationary bubble of "news?"

Al Fin Energy Institute researchers are not complaining, mind you. Microbial fuels are set to be ready to start scaling up in roughly 10 years. In 20 years, microbial fuels will score at least 10% of the liquid fuels markets in advanced western countries. In 30 years, petroleum companies will be pushed to the wall to keep their costs down low enough to compete.

But premature ejaculations of gee whiz futurism can lead to wide-scale cynicism. In the case of microbial fuels, neither gee-whiz! optimism nor cynical pessimism are warranted. Synthetic genomics is pretty spectacular -- but it takes time to get results. Give it time.

Joule Unlimited patent applications

Proviso: In a fast-changing environment such as industrial synthetic genomics and synthetic fuels, breakthroughs can occur at any time. It is not always in a company's interest to reveal the state of its R&D progress. But all breakthroughs require time to develop into industrial processes, and much more time to scale up to actual commercial and industrial supply systems. As time goes on, we will hear about a lot of breakthroughs. Most of these newsreleases deserve to be taken with a tablespoon of magnesium sulfate and two glasses of water.

Update: Now Brian Wang has picked up the story at NextBigFuture. Brian featured the correct bacterial species in his posting and features some original material from the company's website -- proving once again that Brian's is the best of the technology blogs.

Watching this story getting picked up from site to site provides a dynamic portrait of blogospheric connections. In this case the Globe & Mail writer -- Neil Reynolds, who is one of my favourite mainstream press energy writers -- reported on a company that is no doubt doing some excellent work. But Reynolds was not actually reporting on recent news, he was merely highlighting ongoing work of one particular microbial fuels company. Just one out of many fine companies working on microbial fuels.

Prospecting the Wild West for Promising Algae

Synthetic biology approaches to microbial fuels tend to attract a lot of money and investment, but mother nature still has a few tricks up her sleeve. Evolution has been working on algal species for many hundreds of millions of years.

Lee Elliott works at the US National Renewable Energy Labs, and roams the western US in search of "the perfect algae."

Elliott, a graduate student at theColorado School of Mines and a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, logged 3,500 miles last year driving his car across the West in search of promising algae. _LabEquipment

Whoever first finds the key to the profitable production of microbial fuels will find plenty of customers waiting.

The US government is beginning to get serious about helping fund advanced biofuels efforts. The US Department of Agriculture is providing over $405 million in loan guarantees to three separate ventures -- all three utilising gasification of biomass as the first stage of multi-stage processing of biomass to fuels. The US Department of Energy is providing a $241 million loan guarantee to a new advanced biodiesel plant in Louisiana. The new plant will use a hydrotreating/isomerisation process to convert animal and vegetable oils to high quality bio-diesel.

Abu Dhabi's Masdar Institute along with Boeing and Honeywell, have completed an assessment of an integrated seawater agriculture system (ISAS) to produce fuels and other high value products from salt and brackish water estuaries that are not suitable for traditional agriculture.

The program under the SBRC will be a 5-year research and demonstration project designed to drive the commercial viability of halophyte-derived bioenergy, including renewable jet fuels. The program will use integrated seawater agricultural systems to support the development and commercialization of biofuel sources for aviation, and co-products.

ISAS combines aquaculture, Salicornia cultivation, and mangrove silviculture into an integrated low-impact system for biofuel production that relies on seawater irrigation and does not compete for arable land. It also offers the prospect of contributing to the development of an alternative fuel source that can alleviate a portion of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions without negative environmental impacts. _GCC

Is Putin's Russia Ready to Let Go of Political Peak Oil?

While Russia is rich in oil and gas resources, the Russian government in 2008 had to introduce a US$4.2 billion tax cut at mid-year to reverse declining production after a period of growth from 1998 through 2004. "From the oil company's perspective, the government was taking all the revenue from high oil prices, leaving them will little to invest in new production, so there was nothing to offset declining production from aging fields in Western Siberia," Neff said.

"It's amazing how quickly the industry turned things around," said Neff, noting that Russian oil production passed the 10 million b/d mark in 2010. However, "there's still a sense that Russian production could come to a cliff if they don't make changes." _Rigzone

Russia has barely begun to tap its vast energy and mineral resources. Corruption, incompetence, and bureaucratic wrangling at all levels have combined to hold Russian production far below what it could be. In the past, many international partners and investors have been burned by the arbitrary nationalisation of assets by a corrupt Russian government. But now, Russia says it wants to change all that. Are they truly serious this time?

Russia is seeking to develop its oil and natural gas resources, particularly in untapped areas like its offshore Arctic region, as well as diversify the number of oil and gas export markets available to Russia, and needs companies with deep financial pockets and a willingness to share risk. However, laws restricting exploration and production (E&P) activity by foreign companies and a sector structured to favor domestic firms must be addressed to encourage E&P activity and maintain production growth.

While the Russian government has welcomed foreign investment, it has limited companies to partnering in projects with Russian companies as operator. "It's hard for companies not to want to be in Russia because it has such vast resources, but the investment climate has not been favorable to foreign companies. The most they can hope for is an equal stake in a project with a state company, and that it ambitious," Andrew Neff, senior energy analyst at IHS.

BP's recent share swap with Rosneft, which will allow BP access to explore for oil and gas in Russia's Arctic, was made possible by BP's exceptional circumstances and its unique position in Russia via its TNK-BP venture, Neff said. However, it could set off a new frenzy of international oil companies (IOCs) looking to partner with national oil companies, if not in Russia, perhaps elsewhere.

...The Russian government is expected to push towards private companies investing in exploring for and producing oil and gas in eastern Siberia as part of a plan to diversify its supply market to include China and other Asian countries, where crude oil demand has surged. "The thinking is that if Europe can diversify its gas suppliers, the Russia should be able to find alternative markets for its supply," said Neff.

These efforts include the first pipeline linking Russia and China, the 3,018-mile Eastern Siberia Pacific Pipeline, which is now operational and will transport 300,000 b/d of oil over a 20-year period. The project's second phase will see pipeline laid that will allow for oil shipments to Japan and Korea.... _Rigzone

Prospective partners and investors must think long and hard about getting involved with the corrupt Putin dictatorship. The recent re-conviction of former Yukos head Khodorkovsky provides abundant evidence that the laws in Russia are simply whatever Putin says they are.

And yet, Siberia is stuffed full of mineral and energy wealth. Everyone wants a piece of it. Of course, if Russia does not do something about its incredible shrinking population, Siberia will belong to China before anyone expects it.

Gevo Lining Up for IPO, More Partners

GEVO
Advanced biofuels company Gevo is lining up new partners, and preparing for an IPO where it hopes to raise close to $100 million in funding.

Gevo uses synthetic biology and chemical technology to convert renewable raw materials into isobutanol and renewable hydrocarbons that can be directly integrated on a “drop in” basis into existing fuel and chemical products...

...Gevo says it is developing a pipeline of future customers for its isobutanol and its derivative chemical products across multiple global chemicals and fuels markets. In anticipation of targeted initial commercial production of isobutanol in the first half of 2012, it has entered into a number of letters of intent and is negotiating the final terms of several definitive agreements with future customers and partners in the chemicals and fuels markets, including:

Lanxess Inc., a leading chemicals company;
Total Petrochemicals USA, Inc., an affiliate of Total S.A., a major oil and gas integrated company;
Toray Industries, Inc., a leader in the development of fibers, plastics and chemicals;
United Air Lines, Inc., a major commercial airline; and
CDTECH, a leading hydrocarbon technology provider for the petrochemical and refining industry.

Gevo is also in discussions with major refiners that have indicated an interest in forming partnerships with us to manufacture renewable jet fuel using our isobutanol. It also intends to develop relationships with companies that are engineering and piloting the processes necessary to convert isobutanol to bio-based jet fuel and then license this technology to refiners and petrochemical companies that intend to use its isobutanol and other bio-based butanols for the production of biobased jet fuel. _GCC

According to energy venturist Vinod Khosla, Gevo is one of the "good guys."

Archive of Gevo news articles from Biofuels Digest

Some behind the scenes legal wrangling between Gevo and Butamax

Gevo's business approach emphasises business and industrial partnerships, building upon a specific fermentation product: isobutanol from engineered bacteria. Butanol is significantly superior to ethanol as a fuel blend, as a drop-in fuel, and as a chemical feedstock.

Gevo used synthetic biology and metabolic engineering to develop its biocatalyst to make isobutanol at high concentrations and without the typical expression co-products. Economic yield from carbohydrates and robust operations are the hallmark of all successful industrial biotechnology projects. Our current generation biocatalyst operates on fermentable sugars from grain crops, sugar cane and sugar beets. Future generation biocatalysts are in development for mixed sugars from biomass so when the conversion technology is commercially available, we will be able to produce cellulosic butanol.

Although isobutanol is a naturally occurring alcohol, high concentrations inhibit the growth of microorganisms. In order to operate our fermentation at optimum conditions for the biocatalyst, and within the process conditions found in ethanol plants, Gevo developed a unique separation technology. The solution uses a process innovation for continuous separation of the isobutanol as it is produced. Gevo provides the fully integrated solution to its ethanol production partners via flexible commercial arrangements. _Gevo

The company seems to be working on fitting all of the pieces of its business plan together before it enters the marketplace. Here is a history of Gevo press releases.

Al Fin energy analysts require more solid information to assess Gevo's chances realistically. The patent infringement lawsuit from Butamax is just one of many bumps on the road to success for Gevo. Getting high yields of isobutanol via microbial fermentation is not an easy task. We would be surprised to see Gevo sustainably scaling up its isobutanol process within 5 years.

Chromatin Demonstrates "Mini-Chromosome Gene Stacking" in Sugar Cane

Chromatin
Chromatin's mini-chromosome gene stacking technology promises to give bioenergy crop engineers the ability to optimise multiple desirable plant traits simultaneously.

Developers...want to insert genes that offer improvements in multiple traits – when an organism has more than one gene inserted in this process – for example, for disease resistance, insect resistance, herbicide resistance – this is called a gene stack. In 2007, for example, Monsanto and Dow introduced an eight-gene stack (SmartStax) that contained eight herbicide tolerance and insect-protection genes, including Dow’s Herculex I and Herculex RW; Monsanto’s YieldGard VT Rootworm/RR2 and YieldGard VT PRO, Roundup Ready and Liberty Link tolerance genes.

Gene stacking, thereby, is foundational in the drive for higher productivity from land crops.

You can stack in one of two ways. First, the traits are inserted, one each into one varietals. Then the varietals are cross-bred in the traditional manner so that they transfer the genes, eventually, into the target. That’s how Monsanto and Dow came up with SmartSTax.

The Chromatin process

The other way is to insert them all at one time into one varietal.
The company developed a proprietary gene stacking technology, which can be used to simultaneously, and precisely introduce multiple genes in any plant, bypassing the cross-breeding process.

... let’s say you wanted to introduce several genes, not just one – for example, insect resistance, herbicide resistance, disease resistance, higher sugar concentrations, and enzymes to enable better bagasse digestion. If you could do it at all in cane – and it would be a monumental, unprecedented achievement in cross-breeding, it would take, say 13 years or so to accomplish it. It has made changes at this level uneconomical.

So that’s what the Chromatin breakthrough is all about. Creating a method to bring the sort of possibilities that have materially advanced yields in, say, corn and soy, to a whole new array of energy and food crops. Opening up the door for more rapid improvement of the underlying per-acre yields.

...Cross breeding has been the platform technique for a 500 percent improvement in corn yields, over 100 years. That’s a long, long time, but it shows the kind of fundamental change possible. Without cross-breeding, the world would in all probability starved to death long ago – or rather, stalled in its industrial development as simply too many hands, and too much acreage, would have been needed on the farm.

Meanwhile, there are energy grasses, woods and aquatic species that have hardly been touched by cross-breeding or genetic improvement – and already in their wild state have had promising results in terms of productivity for biofuels. SG is just getting a leash on jatropha; companies like Sapphire Energy are just undertaking the first large-scale improvement programs for algae.

But doing so at the lowest possible cost, and the highest possible speed, is the surest road to the kinds of productivities that provide food, feed and fuel for all. This is an advance in science with game-changing characteristics across a host of energy crops. _BiofuelsDigest

Chromatin website

The technology as described sounds very exciting. Not having seen any of the research data, I cannot vouch for any of the claims. Genes require entire arrays of nuclear and cellular proteins for transcription and translation into structural proteins and enzymes. A highly intricate regulatory mechanism is involved in order to effectively utilise any gene -- artificial or natural. One cannot simply throw genes willy nilly into plant or animal cells and expect them to work as you wish.

On the other hand, if a research group were able to manipulate the mechanisms of gene expression in desired ways, so as to make best use of artificial "gene stack chromosomes," the possibilities would be enormous.

How Many "Bakkens" Will Be Found?

North Dakota's Bakken shale oil deposits were supposed to have only 4.3 billion barrels of proven reserves. But that number keeps rising -- as do the production numbers from Bakken fields.

An initial study by the US Geological Survey (notorious for its miserable record in grossly underestimating oil and gas reserves over decades) claimed that the North Dakota Bakken had 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil. The latest official estimate is already 11 billion barrels. Continental Resources (CLR), a leading Bakken producer, says that at current economics and with current technology the North Dakota Bakken has 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

The US Government claims that total US crude reserves at the end of 2009 were only 21 billion barrels.

There are almost 170 billion barrels of oil in place in North Dakota according to industry estimates, so that as new generations of technology appear and business experience accumulates, the ultimate recoverable reserves may be scores of billions of barrels.

...Drilling now is at an all time high. The State of North Dakota projects that by 2017 North Dakota’s oil production will have risen to around 600, 000 barrels per day ((bpd)) from about 325,000 bpd at present, compared with only 450,000 bpd in onshore Alaska (according to the US Government) in 2017 and about 525,000 bpd onshore Alaska at present. _SeekingAlpha

But the same technologies that made the North American shale oil and shale gas revolutions possible, are also making it possible for dozens of other countries to repeat the energy revolution inside their own borders.

Australian-Canadian Oil Royalties Ltd reports that it may have discovered a formation similar to the Bakken in the Georgina Basin (Northern territory and Queensland). The company will participate in 2 multi stage horizontal frac wells via Baraka Petroleum.

The latter company recently released estimates of shale oil in place in 2 permits in the Southern Georgina basin of 5 to11 billion barrels.

Another company in the Southern Georgina basin, Central Petroleum, announced significant shale oil in place resources in its permit areas. Like the tremendously productive Williston Basin (home of the Bakken) the Georgina is an intracratonic basin( found in continental interiors, well away from tectonic plate boundaries). Such basins occur worldwide.

The Arthur Creek shale formation in the Southern Georgina is very similar to the Bakken but with about 5 times the thickness. All 18 exploratory wells drilled so far have shown oil.

Australian geologists certainly seem to think they have found another Bakken. In another 15 to 18 months we will know if this is indeed true.

Even France?

It is not Australia, however, but France-- where the greatest industry anticipation and activity is building in the search for the next Bakken; in the well known Paris basin.

The Paris basin (current production of less than 15,000 bpd of conventional oil) covers the northern half of France and extends into neighboring countries. It is a vintage oil and gas basin. Over 2 thousand wells have been drilled and 52 fields discovered. It has extensive oil and gas shale deposits. The 3 oil shale formations are the Lower Lias , Amaltheus and Schistes Carton. The current focus of excitement is the Lower Lias with estimated oil in place resource base of a few billion to tens of billions of barrels. The estimates (guesses) for the oil in place in the other 2 formations are much higher.

Vermillion Energy is one of 10 companies positioning themselves in the Lower Lias. Vermillion reactivated a 25 year old ExxonMobil (XOM) well using drilling techniques tried and refined in the US shale industry. Vermillion is the largest conventional oil producer (8,500 bpd) in France. Vermillion plans to spend $160 million to develop shale oil reserves in the Paris Basin.

Realm Energy International (RLMXF.PK) (it has a shale oil and gas development partnership with Halliburton (HAL)) has also applied to be a significant explorer in the Paris Basin. The company has identified 17 potential oil and gas shale plays in Europe. It is already active in Poland. The company has also been awarded shale concessions in Lower Saxony, Germany.

Torreador Resources, an E&P headquartered in Paris, has perhaps the most ambitious plans for the Paris Basin in partnership with Hess (HES) which has invested $120 million (the figure could be $265 million with contingent payments) with Torreador to explore 1.7 millon gross acres in the Paris Basin. Hess has invested $1billion in the Bakken and plans to invest another $1billion there over the next 5 years. In addition to the Paris Basin, Hess thinks it has found a basin analogous to the Bakken in China.

Torreador asserts that an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil have been generated from source rocks in the Paris basin, of which 30 billion are in the Lower Lias. Its gross acreage position makes it, at present, the largest player there.

Torreador plans to drill 6 wells in the Paris Basin in 2011. Of these 2 each will be vertical, vertical / horizontal combination and horizontal. The first 4 wells have been permitted and a drilling contractor secured. The first well will be completed in February 2011 and the 6th in October 2011. By the end of this year the company expects to complete well evaluation and design phase2 of its program. _SeekingAlpha

And then there are potentially huge shale gas discoveries in Argentina, Quebec, Poland, India, the UK, off the coast of Israel, in China, British Columbia, and on and on . . .

Many of these shale gas finds will also produce large amounts of liquids along with the gas. The discovery phase for this type of field has just begun.

Supplies of natural gas could last more than 250 years if Asian and European economies follow the U.S. unconventional reserves, the IEA said. _UPI

Reserves of coal, kerogens, bitumens, methane clathrates, and other hydrocarbons are almost certainly just as underestimated as reserves of shale oil and shale gas have been. As improved technologies for both discovery and production are developed, the difficulty of obtaining "difficult hydrocarbons" will be reduced.

Remember: EROEI is not a fixed number. It is a moving target, and relatively meaningless on its own. We are barely beginning to put together the puzzle which will reveal tomorrow's energy resources and supplies.

Bill Gates Jumps Into Oil Exploration; Brazil's Reserves to Double?

Bill Gates has read the tea leaves, and thinks that there is money in advanced oil exploration technologies.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is tossing his financial support behind a Houston company which hopes to utilize detailed analytics and measurement technologies to take some of the guesswork out of onshore oil and gas exploration. NEOS GeoSolutions -- whose investors include the legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and investment bank Goldman Sachs -- today announced a $60 million investment from Gates and others.

The company touts itself as a "geosciences company where Silicon Valley meets the oil patch," and Gates' involvement certainly adds some big-name technology credentials to the mix.

According to the company's Web site, NEOS can can help oil, gas and mining companies more efficiently explore the Earth's subsurface.

We do this by integrating a broad range of geological and geophysical (G&G) data – including data available in the public domain, owned by our clients, or acquired using proprietary NEOS platforms – to produce a highly constrained 3D model of the subsurface. By applying the latest geostatistical techniques, we help our clients determine which portions of a basin might be the most prospective and, at the lease level, what areas are most likely to contain commercial quantities of hydrocarbons or minerals.

_TechFlash

Brazil's oil reserves may be set to double in extent:

Brazilian oil deposits below a layer of salt in the Atlantic Ocean hold at least 123 billion barrels of reserves, more than double government estimates, according to a university study by a former Petroleo Brasileiro SA geologist.

The research, which set out to show government figures were overly optimistic, found they underestimated the area’s potential, said Hernani Chaves, a professor at the Rio de Janeiro State University who worked at Petrobras for 35 years. The forecast, which the study puts at a 90 percent probability, compares with 50 billion barrels estimated by Brazil’s oil regulator, known as ANP.

“We started with a skeptical view and finished with bigger numbers,” _Bloomberg

Coal to rival oil in energy production by 2030

Green coal may come to India within 2 years

GE to assist Shenhua in providing clean coal technology to China

Renewables bubble bursting in Spain and France. German and Scandinavian power grid managers are not very happy about the renewables bubble either.

The world is floating in hydrocarbon energy resources. Humans in developed societies must choose between the lefty-Luddite dieoff.orgiast philosophy -- as promoted by Obama's merry band of energy starvationists -- or a cleaner and more abundant future of limitless resources released by the unbound human mind.

More on Small Modular Reactors

UxC SMRs TOC etc PDF
UxConsultants has recently published an extensive 500 page special report (description) on Small Modular Reactors, available for purchase at $10,000. You can get an idea of the nature of the report by reading this PDF excerpt, which includes table of contents and lists of figures, tables, and illustrations. Here is a newsrelease description of the report:

Some of the main findings of UxCs SMRA report include:

1) Up to 7 of the leading designs could see at least one plant built by 2020

2) SMRs are likely to be deployed in Russia, China, South Korea, United States, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere

3) Integral PWR designs have the highest likelihood for near-term deployment, but various HTR and LMR concepts are also experiencing positive advances

4) SMR economics can be competitive with larger LWR/HWR designs, if technical and supply chain issues are properly addressed

5) SMRs offer broad appeal for a great number of potential customers, especially due to their multiple applications from generation of both electricity and process heat

UxCs SMRA report aims to fill a clear information gap in the developing SMR marketplace and is believed to be the first ever global comparative analysis of the competing SMR designs. _EyeofDubai

Another promising advanced SMR design not listed in the report summary above, is the ARC-100 molten sodium cooled reactor from Advanced Reactor Concepts.

The new product now under development in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., is a 100 MW liquid-metal (sodium) cooled fast reactor (large image) that will require refueling once every 20 years. It is remarkable that the technology of EBR-II will live again in this small reactor design. One of the pioneers of that technology, Leon Walters, is now working on the project and is interviewed here.

He told the American Nuclear Society (PDF file) in 2004 that those who built and operated EBR-II have not given up the vision. Walters notes, the design “is proven, it is proliferation-resistant, it decreases waste disposal problems, it’s inherently safe, and perhaps most important of all, Fermi’s original idea—conserving fissionable material—is still sound.”

The ARC reactor system comprises a small uranium-zirconium-fueled nuclear core, submerged in a tank of ambient pressure liquid sodium. The liquid sodium passes through the core where it is heated to 950 degrees Fahrenheit (510 degrees Celsius), it then passes through a heat exchanger where it heats sodium in an intermediate loop, which in turn heats working fluid for energy conversion turbines.

The working fluid can be water that is heated to create steam. Alternatively, the fluid can be carbon dioxide heated to create supercritical (almost liquid) carbon dioxide. The steam, or supercritical carbon dioxide, then spins a turbine to make electricity and is recycled in a closed loop for reheating. According to the company, the supercritical carbon dioxide energy converter system, called the Brayton cycle, provides a thermal efficiency (percentage of heat energy converted to electricity) of 40% or more, significantly higher than the efficiency of conventional steam driven turbine systems. _IS

No doubt there are yet other SMR designs which are being developed around the world, which did not make it into the UxC report.

SMRs will first be built and operated in countries other than the US, because the Obama Nuclear Regulatory Commission policies discourage the licensing of new reactors. The NRC process is almost prohibitively expensive and unnecessarily hamstrung by bureaucratic makework. The NRC has in fact not licensed significantly new types of reactor designs in decades, and clearly has no intention of making it any easier to do so now -- regardless of the critical need to do so.

Big Biomass Boost for Drought-Prone Climates

Mike Mickelbart, an assistant professor of horticulture; Mike Hasegawa, a professor of horticulture; and Chal Yul Yoo, a horticulture graduate student, found that a genetic mutation in the research plant Arabidopsis thaliana reduces the number of stomata. But instead of limiting carbon dioxide intake, the gene creates a beneficial equilibrium.

"The plant can only fix so much carbon dioxide. The fewer stomata still allow for the same amount of carbon dioxide intake as a wild type while conserving water," said Mickelbart, whose results were published in the early online version of the journal The Plant Cell. "This shows there is potential to reduce transpiration without a yield penalty. _Cheminfo

Scientists at Purdue University have discovered a mutant plant gene -- GTL1 -- which shows the way for plants to produce significant biomass even in the face of drought conditions.

Mickelbart and Yoo used an infrared gas analyzer to determine the amount of carbon dioxide taken in and water lost in the Arabidopsis mutant.

Analysis showed that the plant, which has a mutant form of the gene GTL1, did not reduce carbon dioxide intake but did have a 20 percent reduction in transpiration. The plant had the same biomass as a wild type of Arabidopsis when its shoot dry weight was measured.

"The decrease in transpiration leads to increased drought tolerance in the mutant plants," Yoo said.

"They will hold more water in their leaves during drought stress."

The results have been published in the online version of the journal The Plant Cell. _NewKerala

Of the 20 genes known to control stomata, SDD1 was highly expressed in the mutant. SDD1 is a gene that is responsible for regulating the number of stomata on leaves. In the mutant, with GTL1 not functioning, SDD1 is highly expressed, which results in the development of fewer stomata.

Mickelbart said the finding is important because it opens the possibility that there is a natural way to improve crop drought tolerance without decreasing biomass or yield. He said the next step in the research is to determine the role of GTL1 in a crop plant.

The National Science Foundation and a Binational Agricultural Research and Development Award funded the research. _ScienceDaily

Change the genes, change the rules. Obviously such mutants occur spontaneously, in reaction to drought conditions. This places recent "research" claims by the high priesthood of global warming catastrophe in doubt. In fact, plants do have ways to amass greater CO2 in conditions of lowered water availability. The mechanism was provided by natural selection a long time ago.

In fact, most life forms on Earth evolved under conditions of far higher CO2 levels -- and highly variable climate conditions of cyclical drought, flood, heat, cold etc. It is time for computer modelers to stop trying to meddle in the global economy, to acquire a bit of much needed humility, and to stop stealing resources from society which would be more productively used in the private sector.

Throwing Some Light on Cold Fusion

More 18Jan11: According to this article at PureEnergySystems website, the Italian inventor Andrea Rossi is also associated with the website "Journal of Nuclear Physics.com". Pierluca Rossi of the U. of Bologna is listed on the Board of Advisors for the "nuclear experiments blog." Articles published on the website are said to be peer-reviewed, published without modification. Authors are entirely responsible for the content of their own article.

Simply put, the effect involves pressurized dihydrogen gas (2 bars is the lowest mentioned in the patent and 80 bars is what was used in the demonstration) is placed in metal tube with nano powdered nickel and a heating element (resistor). Somehow the dihydrogen gas is split into atomic hydrogen. When heat is applied the atomic hydrogen reacts with the powdered nickel to produce energy up to 400 times the input energy. Undisclosed catalysts are used to increase the efficiency of the cell.

Andrea Rossi is listed as the inventor. He is also the primary operator of the http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/ website and forum, where the information about the technology is posted. _PES

See also: Directory:Andrea A. Rossi Cold Fusion Generator in PESWIKI

Brian Wang and Brian Westenhaus are providing some interesting information and viewpoints on the latest cold fusion reports from Italy.

The work is published in the Journal of Nuclear Physics, and presents a novel mechanism for significant heat gain involving a subatomic combination (particle fusion) of nickel to copper.

When hydrogen atoms come in contact with the metal (Ni), they abandon their stationary state as they deposit their electrons in the conductivity band of the metal, and due to their greatly reduced volume, compared to that of their atom, the hydrogen nuclei (naked protons) readily diffuse into the defects of the nickel crystalline structure as well as in tetrahedral or octahedral void spaces of the crystal lattice.

It should be underlined that, in addition to the deposited hydrogen electrons, in the nickel mass included are also electrons of the chemical potential of the metal. Jointly these electrons constitute the conductivity electronic cloud, distributed in energy bands (Fermi), and quasi free to move throughout the metallic mass.

it is conceivable that, for a very short time period (e.g. 10ˆ-18 sec), a series of neutral mini atoms of hydrogen could be formed, in an unstable state, of various size and energy level, distributed within the Fermi band, which is enlarged due to the very short time (Heisenberg).

The neutral mini-atoms of high energy and very short wave length – which is in phase with the “cyclic” orbit (de Broglie) – are statistically captured be the nickel nuclei of the crystal structure with the speed of nuclear reactions (10ˆ-20 sec).

For these mini-atoms to fuse with the nickel nuclei, apart from their neutral character for surpassing the Coulomb barrier, they must have dimensions smaller than 10ˆ-14 m, where nuclear cohesion forces, of high intensity but very short range, are predominant. It is assumed that only a percentage of such atoms satisfy this condition (de Broglie).

The above considerations are based only on an intuitive approach and I trust this phenomenon could be tackled in a systematic and integrated way through the “theory of time dependent perturbations” by employing the appropriate Hamiltonian

The mechanism proposed by Focardi – Rossi, verified by mass spectroscopy data, which predicts transmutation of a nickel nucleus to an unstable copper nucleus (isotope), remains in principle valid. The difference is that inside the unstable copper nucleus, produced from the fusion of a hydrogen mini-atom with a nickel nucleus, is trapped the mini-atom electron (β-), which in my opinion undergoes in-situ annihilation, with the predicted (Focardi-Rossi) decay β+ of the new copper nucleus. _JournalNuclearPhysics_via_BrianWang

The claims will require verification, but researcher-inventors Focardi and Rossi are reportedly already working on plans for scaled up commercial versions of the device.

Watts in: 400 wh/h
Watts out: 15,000 wh/h
Yes, we can turn off the input current, but we prefer to maintain a drive and the reasons are very difficult to explain without violating my confidentiality restraints.
The reaction becomes self sustaining.

1) What is the evidence for copper production?
Answer - the evidence of copper production in past has been found using an atomic microscope in the University of Bologna. The same we will make now: we will bring the sample of the Ni we used to the lab of UNIBO and detect Cu

2) Is there any evidence for isotopic anomalies?

Answer - in the past we found them by means of the secondary ions mass spectrometer of the University of Padua. We will do the same now

3) How is the power switched on and off?
Answer - just [the same process] as [when] you turn on and off your television set

4) Is there evidence of consumption of a fuel?
Answer - yes, by an analysis. To measure the difference of mass you have to use the charge for months, because what you consume in a day is in the order of picograms

How much Ni is in the cell? Answer - In the cell there are several milligrams of Ni

How much total energy, heat and radiation, is produced per hour for a gram of Ni?

To make 10 kWh/h the consume of Ni and H is in the order of several picograms, but considering that not all the Ni in the reactor reacts, the actual consumption, to make 10 kWh/h is of about 0,1 g of Ni and 0,01 g of H

Are some other elements used to facilitate the reactions?

Yes, other elements are used, upon which we have to maintain confidentiality until the patent pending becomes a patent _from press conference as reported by Brian Wang

Videos of a recent device test can be viewed at NextBigFuture

The implications of such a device -- if the claims of an energy gain of 37 to 1 are verified -- are immense. The approach is clearly scalable. Nickel is relatively inexpensive, although other elements involved (presumably as catalysts) are likely to be more expensive.

Faux environmentalists will bemoan this news in private, given their preference for a human dieoff of up to 90% or more of the human population from "resource scarcity". Peak energy religionists would likewise rage against the fading of their great dreams of doom.

It is best to assume that the Italian solution will take many decades to develop, and to carry on with the many alternative approaches to reliable, abundant, and clean energy sources and efficient uses of energy.

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Will Not Be Stopped

A global race is under way to develop small-reactor designs, says Paul Genoa of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry body in Washington, DC. He estimates that more than 20 countries have expressed serious interest in buying mini-reactors.

At least eight different approaches are being developed, mainly in America and Asia, by an army of 3,000 nuclear engineers, according to Ron Moleschi of SNC-Lavalin Nuclear, an engineering firm based in Montreal. Regulatory and licensing procedures are lengthy, so little will be built until around 2017, he says. But after that the industry is expected to take off. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that by 2030 at least 40 (and possibly more than 90) small reactors will be in operation. It reckons that more than half of the countries that will build nuclear plants in coming years will plump for these smaller, simpler designs. _Economist

Economist
Obama's Nuclear Regulatory Commission is dragging its feet on nuclear energy -- particularly on new safer, more economical reactor designs such as small modular reactors. But the world is much larger than the Obama agenda of energy starvation. In the real world, small modular nuclear reactors will find a way.

19-20 April 2011 Conference in Columbia, SC, on Small Modular Reactors:

The conference is expected to draw about 120 people from about 60 companies and agencies around the world, such as China National Nuclear Corp., the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iraq Energy Institute. Also, industry heavyweights like Westinghouse, AREVA and GE have signed up, along with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Army and utilities across the nation.

The conference, scheduled to be held April 19-20 at the Marriott Hotel on Main Street, is sponsored by SCE&G and organized by the Carolinas’ Nuclear Cluster and Nuclear Energy Insider _thestate

SMR Conference 23-24 May 2011 Washington, DC...._ Call for abstracts


Small modular reactors can be built more quickly, safely, and cheaply in a controlled factory environment. They can then be shipped to the site for a quick and inexpensive installation -- pre-loaded with fuel and ready to hook up.

The US Navy has been powering ships safely using small nuclear reactors for many decades. One of the most likely future suppliers of SMRs to the civilian market -- Babcock and Wilcox -- just received a new $2 billion award for Naval Nuclear Reactor Components.

But then, the US military has to actually accomplish something -- unlike the civil portion of the US government which generally does no more than consume scarce resources which would be put to better use elsewhere.

2010 Crude Oil: 50 Billion Barrels Discovered, 30 Billion Barrels Used

CarpeDiem
With the price of oil hovering above $70 a barrel for over a year -- and around $90 a barrel for several weeks -- oil exploration companies can get to work discovering rich new oil fields. In 2010, more new oil was discovered than was consumed -- and we can expect that trend to continue as long as oil stays high -- above fundamentals. OPEC is sitting on considerable reserve production.

Iraq has barely begun to develop its huge fields using modern technology. Africa's rich fields are waiting for a political structure that is able to limit sabotage, theft and corruption. Mexico's leadership is finally admitting that its own graft and laziness has caused premature flagging of national oil production. Venezuela's production of its vast resources is artificially damped by an incompetent presidential boob. Russia's autocratic corruptocracy is reflected by incompetence at the oil field level -- Russian production could be much higher with competent oversight.

Bluntly put, the world is sitting on far more crude oil than it knows what to do with at this time. Human incompetence, corruption, and lack of skilled manpower and state-of-the-art equipment chokepoints contribute to the real disconnect and lag between moment-to-moment demand and instantaneous supplies.

Political peak oil: The only kind of peak oil you will ever see, except for peak demand, when oil is no longer needed.

Taken from Mark Perry's Carpe Diem blog:

Last year was a really good year for new oil discoveries, there were at least 14 major oil discoveries in Brazil alone totaling 13.5 to 26.7 billion barrels, here's a list below:

1. Well OGX-4-RUS:
100-200 million barrels
 – February

2. Well 1-OGX-3-RJS:
500-900 million barrels
 - February

3. Well 4-PM-53:
25 million barrels
 – February

4. Additions to Barracuda:
65 million barrels
 - February

5. Maastrichtian section of Well OGX-5:
30-90 million barrels
 February

6. Piranema:
15 million barrels
 - March

7. Wahoo:
300 million barrels
 - April

8. Franco:
4.5 billion barrels
 - May

9. Pipeline and Etna:-
1.4-2.6 billion barrels
 - May

10. Waimea and Fuji:
600 million-1.1 billion barrels
 - May

11. Carimbe:
105 million barrels
 - May

12. Brava:
380 million barrels
 - June

13. Libra:
3.7-15 billion barrels
 - October

14. Cernambi field at Iracema:
1.8 billion barrels
 -December

In addition, there were more than 30 billion barrels discovered in other parts of the world in 2010, including Iran, Russia, Norway(more), Mexico, Ghana, Iraq, U.S. (Texas, ND and Montana and Colorado), Falkland Islands, U.K., Angola(more) and Oman, bringing the total of new recoverable oil discoveries in 2010 to around 50 billion barrels. Brazil was the clear leader in 2010, with the oil found there representing up to half of all new global oil discoveries in 2010. With oil now selling now at close to $90 per barrel, we can expect even more discoveries in 2011.

_CarpeDiem

Nuclear Power News

Nuclear energy remains the cleanest, most reliable approach to large scale, long-term electrical power generation. Growing numbers of nuclear bloggers are contributing to the collective online knowledge of the state of the art. Here is an excerpt from the 35th Carnival of Nuclear Energy at NEINuclearNotes:

Published by the American Physical Society, Energy From Thorium highlighted a piece by Robert Hargraves and Ralph Moir where they reviewed “some of the history, potential advantages, potential drawbacks, and current research and development status of liquid-fueled reactors.”
Jack Gamble at Nuclear Fissionary took on a comment from a nuclear critic who believed that nuclear energy will leave our children with doom and gloom. In it, Jack refuted the critic who claimed that nuclear neglects the costs of its entire fuel cycle and our children will hate us for “contaminating the world.” Oy, good thing smart nuclear folks already know how to manage the fuel cycle responsibly.
At Cool Hand Nuke, Dan Yurman reported on Duke’s and Progress’ $14BN merger with a combined six Westinghouse AP1000 reactor license applications pending with the NRC. Over at his own blog, Dan reported on Areva’s monthly blogger call where CEO Jacques Besnainou said the Calvert Cliffs III reactor project is alive and well. Areva’s CEO also talked about clean energy parks and gave advice for the Blue Ribbon Commission on recycling spent nuclear fuel.

As well, at Areva’s blog you can find the latest pictures of the EPR construction of Taishan 1&2 in China (pic to the right). 
Rod Adams at Atomic Insights held a lively discussion on how even power uprates attract opposition. Two Wisconsin organizations, one claiming to be dedicated to consumer protection and one claiming to be focused on clean air and water, came together to file their opposition to NextEra Energy Resources’ proposal to increase the output at the Point Beach nuclear plant by 17%. Even though 63% of the electricity generated in Wisconsin each year comes from burning coal, these two groups claim that Wisconsin does not need any more electricity from nuclear - even if the project would not add any new facilities.
Slightly diverging from nuclear, Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk brought up a report from Germany saying that the explosion of solar due to “generous feed-in tariffs” is seriously stressing the country’s aging power grid. Gail’s message is that “the German experience is just the latest cautionary tale that we really need to learn to do a better job of anticipating the potential impacts of all technologies.”
_NukeCarny35@NEINN_via_NextBigFuture

Babcock and Wilcox has received a $2 billion order from the US Navy for nuclear power equipment.

Production of uranium in Wyoming is increasing. As technology moves to III and IV generation reactors, concerns about global peak uranium should fade rapidly.

Some scholars of complexity and collapse are studying nuclear reactors as a good example of highly complex systems

Brian Wang presents information discussing some of the many advantages of the liquid fuel thorium reactor (LFTR).

It will require the extinction of carbon hysteria and nuclear phobia, but eventually energy policies in the western world will return to at least semi-sanity.