ANS Nuclear Cafe Hosts Carnival of Nuclear Energy # 40

The Carnival of Nuclear Energy has now reached the 40 edition point. ANS Nuclear Cafe has the latest. Here are some excerpts:

Thorium fueled reactors generate interest

Nuclear Green – Rising interest in thorium fueled reactors

Full-size thorium fuel assembly for a 1000 MWe Russian VVER-1000 nuclear power plant

Now that China has announced interest in developing innovative thorium fueled reactor designs, a lot of people are paying attention.

Despite [the Chinese announcement of LFTR development plans] not making a ripple in the wider press, there’s a chance this development could be very significant. If the advocates of LFTRs are proved correct – and their arguments are certainly very compelling – then the Chinese could be taking one of the first substantial steps in a new type of nuclear race.

And the stakes are high: as [Kirk] Sorensen reports, the project “aims not only to develop the technology but to secure intellectual property rights to its implementation”. It will be very interesting to see what happens next.

Oil company business model v. nuclear energy

Atomic Insights – embargo oil business model

The Atomic Insights blog has been covering the business competition between oil, gas, and nuclear energy.  This week it takes on the oil company business model exploring reasons why it is low on innovation and yet high on profits.

ANS launches India Section

Reprocessing spent fuel

Recovering uranium and plutonium from spent fuel can power a nation’s factories and cities.  We recycle aluminum, glass, and paper so why not spent fuel. The logic appears to escape some in the U.K. and elsewhere

Canadian Energy Issues

Get ready for a righteous fight over plutonium in the UK. The coalition government has launched consultations on the question of whether to recycle it in power reactors, or entrain the stuff permanently in glass logs and dispose of it, or just keep it in long term storage.

Expect the professional environmental lobby—with the full support of the professional anti-proliferation lobby—to oppose recycling, and to back up that opposition with reasoning that is either weak or outright contradictory.

Brave New Climate – Safeguarding the nuclear fuel cycle

The purpose of this post is to compare the safeguards challenges presented by two nuclear recycle approaches, relative to the current U. S. approach of a once-through fuel cycle.  If these nuclear fuel cycles are evaluated solely on the basis of the safeguards needed, one finds the following:

PUREX recycle offers no safeguarding advantage over the once-through fuel cycle.  Beyond that, this approach presents a significant concern over handling of separated plutonium in the power plant environment.  Since chemically pure Pu is inherent in the PUREX process, safeguards inspections must be highly intrusive.

Adding recycling fast reactors with pyroprocessing (“PYRO”) to an existing fleet of LWRs absorbs all of the plutonium produced by LWRs.  There will be no inventories of plutonium other than what is in active use. PYRO is a new class of facility requiring safeguards, but batch-process inventory controls, coupled with a simple mechanical layout, will make the inspectors’ job more straightforward than for a PUREX facility.

The facility for recovering usable material from used LWR fuel may require safeguards similar in approach to those in PUREX facilities, but no separated plutonium will be involved.  If plutonium were to be diverted from a PYRO facility or from the LWR recovery facility, it would be useless (for weapons use) without further processing in an otherwise unneeded PUREX type of facility.

Realistically, a full transition to recycling fast reactors is a process that will take decades.  However, if all the LWRs were retired and replaced with recycling fast reactors, in addition to the above advantages, there would be no further need for uranium enrichment.

Get your full gourmet meal of nuclear energy news at ANS Nuclear Cafe's 40th Carnival of Nuclear Energy, including pointed criticism of Obama's NRC, and the battle over public opinion regarding nuclear power.

Despite the many potential advantages of small modular reactors, some utilities want to stick with what they know -- coal. Unfortunately, as we learned from the recent Texas experience, power plants which rely upon day to day supply of fuel from the outside, may get frozen out.

Some scientists are predicting that low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) devices will achieve commercial success within 10 years.

The UK's Tokamak Solutions' attempt to achieve success with a spherical tokamak fusion reactor, is covered here and here.

The US government is stuck on an "energy starvation" setting for now. As long as the Obama regime chooses stagnation and stasis, it will be up to the rest of the world to take their own ideas and technologies -- plus ideas and technologies originating inside the US -- and move them forward to commercial success.

Joule Tries to Push the Photosynthetic Limit on Microbial Fuels

JouleThe graph above illustrates some of the limiting factors for production of biofuels and biomass using photosynthesis. The paper linked here provides more in-depth thinking on this topic. To achieve higher yields, it is necessary to feed much higher levels of CO2 to the bioreactors than is available in the atmosphere. Modifying the microbes to channel most of their effort toward biofuels production is required. And photon input must be maximised to provide high input energies.

Several emerging technologies are aiming to.....provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Direct conversion of solar energy into fungible liquid fuel is a particularly attractive option, though conversion of that energy on an industrial scale depends on the efficiency of its capture and conversion. Large-scale programs have been undertaken in the recent past that used solar energy to grow innately oil-producing algae for biomass processing to biodiesel fuel. These efforts were ultimately deemed to be uneconomical because the costs of culturing, harvesting, and processing of algal biomass were not balanced by the process efficiencies for solar photon capture and conversion. This analysis addresses solar capture and conversion efficiencies and introduces a unique systems approach, enabled by advances in strain engineering, photobioreactor design, and a process that contradicts prejudicial opinions about the viability of industrial photosynthesis. We calculate efficiencies for this direct, continuous solar process based on common boundary conditions, empirical measurements and validated assumptions wherein genetically engineered cyanobacteria convert industrially sourced, high-concentration CO2 into secreted, fungible hydrocarbon products in a continuous process. These innovations are projected to operate at areal productivities far exceeding those based on accumulation and refining of plant or algal biomass or on prior assumptions of photosynthetic productivity. This concept, currently enabled for production of ethanol and alkane diesel fuel molecules, and operating at pilot scale, establishes a new paradigm for high productivity manufacturing of nonfossil-derived fuels and chemicals. _Robertson, Jacobson et al

ImageSource SpringerlinkJoule claims the ability to produce up to 15,000 gallons of advanced biofuel per acre, using its modified cyanobacteria in "Helioculture" bioreactors. The research paper describing the researchers' thinking, published in Photosynthesis Research.
The approach described in the paper linked above and below allows for a more comprehensive look at the requirements for a high-yield system of production of biofuels using photosynthetic organisms.

Not all photons that enter a reactor are available for conversion. For instance, it may be too costly to maintain the reactor in a condition in which it can convert every photon, such as early in the morning and late in the day when solar radiation is very diffuse. Likewise, depending on how the reactor temperature is maintained, the organisms may not be at optimal production temperature early in the morning. In addition, at very high intensity levels, the organisms may not be able to convert all of the photons. Based on models that integrate solar and meteorological data with a thermal and production model, we estimate that about 15% of the incoming photons will not be available for conversion for the direct case. We assign a comparable loss to the algal open pond.
................................................................................

The main fractional loss in photosynthetic conversion results from energy-driven metabolism. Because the photosynthetic process is ultimately exothermic, the available energy contained in the product formed by metabolism is a fraction of that contained in the incoming photons. The remaining energy is dissipated as heat into the culture. For the production of alkane, we calculated that ~12 photons are required to reduce each molecule of CO2. Assuming an average PAR photon energy of 226 kJ/mol and a heating value of 47.2 MJ/kg for alkane, the photosynthetic conversion efficiency is about 25% (equivalent to a loss of 74.8%). For the simpler triglyceride, we assume only eight photons are required to reduce each molecule of CO2, but that the product consists of half triglyceride (heating value ≈37 kJ/kg) and half simple biomass (heating value ≈15.6 kJ/kg), resulting in a photosynthetic conversion efficiency of about 29.8%. This value for algal open ponds is considered to be very conservative, with the actual value likely a few percent lower. Finally, for the theoretical maximum, we use the value computed in Zhu et al. (2008) for a maximum photosynthetic efficiency of 29.1% (obtained by combining the loss for photochemical inefficiency and carbohydrate synthesis). _Source

Brian Wang also looks at this paper.

There is no easy way to produce high yield advanced biofuels -- else it would have been accomplished decades ago. The density of sunlight and available CO2 -- as well as selfish microbes who only think about themselves -- present significant obstacles. And yet the prize for success is so great, that billions of US$ are being funneled into the attempt, and dozens of top notch research teams are devoting their time toward the goal.

Forget about peak oil. If you want to see peak energy for Earth, look at the sun and the planetary core, and at the nuclear energy of the atom. Better yet, expand your horizon to take in the enetire solar system. If you're smart, you are only at the beginning.

The Failure of Wind Power

WUWT
Wind power in northern New Brunswick has been shut down for weeks due to freezing cold. Just when the people of the province most need the power from the expensive turbines, they are frozen solid!

FREDERICTON — A $200-million wind farm in northern New Brunswick is frozen solid, cutting off a potential supply of renewable energy for NB Power.

The 25-kilometre stretch of wind turbines, located 70 kilometres northwest of Bathurst, N.B. has been completely shutdown for several weeks due to heavy ice covering the blades...GDF SUEZ Energy, the company that owns and operates the site, is working to return the windmills to working order, a spokeswoman says.

...Wintery conditions also temporarily shutdown the site last winter, just months after its completion. Some or all of the turbines were offline for several days, with "particularly severe icing" blamed.

The accumulated ice alters the aerodynamics of the blades, rendering them ineffective as airfoils. The added weight further immobilizes the structures.

Vitek says workers are trying to find a way to prevent ice buildup from occurring again in the future. The shutdown has not had any effect on employment at the site, which provides 12 permanent jobs. _GlobalMontreal.com_via_WUWT

Obama's regime -- and faux environmentalists around the globe -- have been gung ho over big wind power farms for years now. And every time anyone takes a close look at the economics and the details of wind energy, they come back to the same fact -- wind doesn't work.

The operating characteristics of turbine and generator mean that only a small part of wind energy can be captured.

Wind power is also intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. Therefore large backup or storage systems are required. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network. Wind farms are uniformly hated by neighbours and will not be willingly accepted without heavy compensation payments. Their noise, flicker, fire risk and disturbing effect on domestic and wild animals are well documented.

The wind is free but wind power is far from it. Its cost is far above all conventional methods of generating electricity. Either taxpayers or consumers will pay this bill.

...Electric generators achieve maximum efficiency at their design capacity. This is planned to suit the "average" wind speed, and the generator produces maximum safe output at this speed. If the wind drops, so does the power generated. If the wind rises, the energy generated is limited to the design capacity of the generator (by varying the pitch of the blades) and at some point the generator is shut down to prevent burnout. So the generator cuts off all the high-energy infrequent wind, in order to capture the maximum energy from the winds expected by the turbine designers at that location. These unavoidable operating characteristics of the turbine also reduce the power generated.

...Wind energy promoters usually quote the maximum attainable output as the capacity of the wind farm. This is the maximum power that could be produced if ideal winds blew all the time at all turbines (the 100% level in the figure above). However, this needs to be multiplied by the "capacity factor" to get the actual power likely to be generated. Because of the variable winds and the energy unable to be captured by the generator, the capacity factor lies in the range 25% - 35%. However it can be much lower. UK offshore wind rarely exceeds 20%.

In summary, wind power is very dilute and it takes a huge area of land to collect significant quantities of energy. Then vagaries of the wind mean that only a small proportion of the wind energy can be captured by the blades. Then only a proportion of this energy is converted by the electrical generator into electrical energy.

...In the recent frigid snap in Britain end 2011, when power demand was at a record high, the average power generation from Britain’s wind developments – the majority of which are in Scotland – was just about 11% of the total possible of 2,430 MW. On 30 Dec 2010 UK's 3,000 operational wind turbines produced only 0.04% of the country’s power. There were days when the contribution from Scotland's forests of wind turbines was precisely nothing. At times it was even worse than that. As the temperature fell to record lows, the wind turbines had to be heated to prevent them seizing up. So, at a time when all Britain needed every bit of power, the wind industry was using more electricity than it generated.

...Depending on the vagaries of the weather, wind power produces anything from zero to 100% of design capacity. This change can come in a short time and affect large areas of land. Therefore, to maintain grid stability and the ability to supply customer demand for continuous electricity, every wind farm has to have a backup generating facility for 100% of the wind capacity, and this backup must be able to swing into production immediately.

It is even worse than that. Suppose a wind farm is producing an average of 50 MW, but varying from zero to 100 MW. The backup has to be able to handle both changes, namely a drop of 50 MW and an increase of 50 MW. So basically, you have to have 100 MW capacity on spinning reserve, but running at 50% so that you can increase or decrease power by 50 MW. So the backup facility has to have TWICE the real rated capacity of the wind farm. Imagine what this does to the capital, operating and maintenance costs if the power company is forced to include wind power in its inventory.

Only hydro power and gas have the ability to sit idle until needed and then swing into production swiftly. Coal and nuclear could do it but at great cost – all fired up, idling, using fuel, but not producing saleable electricity. Even for gas or hydro, a backup facility incurs the full additional capital cost which has to be recovered from a lower output of electricity. Any sensible person would say "If we have to spend all that capital to build a gas/hydro power plant, why not use the reliable plant full time and forget about the costly, intermittent and un-predictable power from wind towers?"

The unreliable Danish wind farms only survive because they call on hydro power from Norway and Sweden to step in at short notice when wind fails. Then they sell excess wind power produced at times of low demand back into the Scandinavian grid.

...A wind tower is a massive industrial plant. Each turbine requires a foundation of almost 1,500 tonnes of concrete and a base of about 5 acres. Each structure stands nearly 200 metres tall and they could be as close as 140 metres apart. UK has a plan to generate 30% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. For wind power to do this would require about 15,700 wind towers. At 140 metres apart, they would stretch from the north of Scotland to the south of Spain.

...And it is unsafe anywhere near them. Lumps of ice, burning embers, and broken blades get slung off and towers collapse. In one case, a broken blade was flung through the window of a house over 5 km away.

...Danish electricity consumers pay higher prices than any other Europeans. And well before they could repay the initial capital, the wind towers are reaching the end of their life and will need to be replaced. Not one coal power plant has been replaced by wind power. It is doubtful if all this community pain and suffering has reduced carbon dioxide emissions. It has certainly caused no measurable improvement to global climate and has brought great environmental damage and human worry. The sorry story of wind power in Denmark is mirrored in Spain, Hawaii and California.

... _Why Wind Won't Work PDF_ via_ WattsupWithThat?!?!

If you want to understand the modern clusterfuck of big wind power, read the PDF document linked above, together with John Droz' presentation on wind power, Ted Rockwell's Energy Facts PDF, and David MacKay's Without Hot Air.

Such documents changed the minds of Al Fin energy analysts about big wind, as you will see if you go back far enough in the archives. Al Fin engineers particularly hate the idea of placing fine machines out in the elements to be tortured and destroyed long before their time. This has been particularly true of offshore wind installations, where fine turbines and gearboxes are exposed to salty spray, wind, and the constant inertial stresses of wind, wave, and storm.

Clearly President Obama and former Vice President Albert Gore are both world class dunces, besides both having won the Nobel Peace Prize. They are also corrupt, team-playing dunces who will end up personally benefiting in the hundreds of millions of US$, at the least, for their destructive influence on economies, energy supplies, and R&D budgets.

Portions of the above article was published earlier at Al Fin

JBEI and Amyris Take Biotica's Polyketides and Run With Them

Cambridge, UK based Biotica is a medical therapeutics development company specialising in novel polyketide therapeutics. Coincidentally, some of the same processes which Biotica uses to develop powerful new drugs against serious diseases, can also be used to produce advanced biofuels. Emeryville, California's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), along with JBEI's East Bay neighbor Amyris Inc., are very interested in developing workable methods for the bio-engineering of polyketides into abundant and economical advanced biofuels.

Here is a look at what JBEI is trying to do with polyketides:

environmentally friendly alternatives, a diversity of advanced biofuels, feedstocks, and methods for producing them must be studied and optimized. To this end, Jay Keasling, Leonard Katz, and colleagues at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) are using synthetic biology to engineer polyketide synthases (PKSs) that can be used to produce carboxylic acids and lactones for biofuel production. (Carboxylic acids can easily be converted to an ester biofuel.) Other laboratories have modified the same type of enzymes for the manufacture of pharmaceutical and agricultural products but the JBEI team is the first to design PKSs to synthesize biofuels or their immediate precursors.

Some of the longer-chain esters that can be produced by the JBEI PKSs could be used in biodiesel blends. The shorter chain esters and the lactones could be used as petroleum additives or in non-hydrophilic, advanced biofuel blends that are compatible with the current fuel infrastructure. Because the JBEI process allows controlled engineering, ester linkages can be placed so that combustion properties of the resulting biofuel are enhanced.

DNA that encodes the engineered enzymes can be introduced into a variety of host organisms capable of fermenting sugars derived from the deconstruction of biomass. The JBEI PKSs can produce the carboxylic acids or lactones in cells or in a cell extract where all the necessary starting materials are present. _lbl.gov

Amyris obtained the license from Biotica, and given its location adjacent to JBEI, the two organisations will be conveniently placed to collaborate on this project.

In other news, Chromatim's hybrid sorghums compares well to other sorghums in terms of yield, sugar content, and overall energy content.

Illinois researchers predict that in order to produce a billion metric tons a year of biomass in 2030, the price for the biomass will need to be around US$140 a ton, in 2007 dollars. The prediction is connected to the goal of replacing 30% of petroleum liquid fuels by the year 2030, and is based on the expectation that high-yield grasses such as miscanthus will be widely grown by that time.

What the Illinois researchers fail to realise is that by the year 2030, biomass productivity will be much higher than is currently envisioned. Even so, at the rate that the Obama dollar is inflating, the prices predicted may prove accurate using 2012 dollars.

The Race to Make Biomass More Productive and Useful

Brian Westenhaus looks at the economics of biomass-to-fuels, and finds that current yields per acre for available biomass crops is not high enough to motivate farmers to sign on. Even with the simple genetic tricks which are coming along now, it's very tough to squeeze enough biomass out of an acre to make it profitable for farmers.

A lot of projects are attempting to improve the productivity picture, including Chromatin's sorghum project, the Giant King Grass enterprise, the Shell and Codexis collaboration, the long line of Ceres grass products, and more.

With so much riding on the biological end run around liquid fossil fuels, researchers and technologists understand that they need to get it right. In the case of biofuels, there are many interlocking things which must be gotten right.

“We all know how to get from the beginning to the end and make biofuels—we’ve all done it,” says James A. Dumesic, a chemical engineer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “What you would like to do is put raw biomass in one end and get a ready-to-use fuel out the other end, using as few steps and engineering unit operations as possible. Now, we are to try to get the costs down so it can be affordable. The winning processes, whatever they will be, will need to be as light as possible on the capital investment in order to be practical. Everyone is looking to develop processes that can compete without subsidies.”

“Because the energy industry is so large, there is room for everybody to play, as long as you can meet the economics,” says Jay D. Keasling, a synthetic biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. “That is the great thing about this problem. Chemical technologies can be engineered to happen more quickly. It does take a long time to engineer the biology. But the beauty of biology is that it can work under dirtier conditions, and you can get the specific molecule you want under a range of conditions.”

Synthetic biology seemed to have the early edge in the race to the pump. But despite success in ethanol production, synthetic biology’s limitations—the primary products are alcohols, not alkanes typical of transportation fuels, and fermentation processes are slow—have stalled progress. That has created an opening for chemical technologies.

“Chemical approaches offer plenty of advantages,” says Mark Mascal, a chemistry professor at UC Davis whose group is working on several biofuel projects. “Generally, if you have an inexpensive catalyst and a fast method, a chemical approach can be more cost-effective and doesn’t take a few days or a week the way most fermentation processes do,” he notes. “A consistent feedstock isn’t needed as is the case with microbes in sugar fermentation—you can use anything as long as it has sugar or cellulose in it.” _ACS

This is what Al Fin energy analysts have been saying for years now. In the long run, genetic engineering along with microbial fuels will carry the day. But in the short and medium terms, thermochemical approaches can pick up the ball and run, as long as they've got plenty of reliable sources for the biomass.

The advantage of gasification and pyrolysis is that the entire plant is used -- not just an oil seed or a grain, as in maize or soy. With low-lignin biomass, more of the plant can be converted into sugars and fermented.

The economic potential for cellulosic sugars -- above and beyond biofuels -- has barely been considered by most analysts. But a few smart operators are beginning to anticipate what is happening there.

The potential for converting biomass into fuels, chemical feedstocks, high value chemicals and feeds, etc. is exciting. There will be many opportunities for the growth of large new enterprises at all levels and most global locations.

Westinghouse Joins the Small Modular Reactor Chase

Westinghouse is introducing a 200MWe pressurised water reactor based on the AP1000 reactor design. The entry of Westinghouse into the SMR race should spice things up a bit.

The Westinghouse SMR is a 200 MWe class, integral pressurized water reactor with all primary components located inside the reactor vessel. Passive safety systems and proven components – realized in the industry-leading AP1000® reactor design – are incorporated throughout to achieve the highest levels of safety and to reduce the number of components required. The Westinghouse SMR is fueled by an adaptation of our Westinghouse fuel design, the industry’s most proven and widely-used fuel design. It also leverages the latest U.S.
NRC-licensed safety and security features.

Small-scale nuclear reactors offer alternatives for providing affordable, secure sources of emissions-free generation to the world’s rapidly changing and diverse markets. _Westinghouse

It is clever of Westinghouse to utilise components from its larger reactor which is already NRC approved.

It has not escaped notice that Obama's Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is not treating all reactors and companies the same. General Electric, with its close ties to top levels of the Obama administration, is being treated particularly well by Obama's NRC, for example.

As far as SMRs go, the Obama administration is trying to have things both ways. By pretending to support SMRs, but in in his actions (not his words) helping to provide support to enemies of all reliable power sources -- including nuclear power. Obama's NRC is not helping the situation with its foot-dragging.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Dutch have suffered a rare stroke of enhanced awareness of reality, by turning away from the wind/solar rat-hole, toward a more reliable nuclear power future.

Finally, if nuclear fission is to make best use of available fuel, countries will need to develop useful fuel re-processing facilities. Wise fuel design & re-processing, plus rational reactor design, could easily provide many thousands of years of abundant power and heat to the planet.

US Potential for Geothermal Power 32 Million Times Higher than Present!

USGS estimates 500,000 MWe of EGS geothermal resource potential lies beneath the western United States. This is approximately half of the current installed electric power generating capacity in the United States.
_EERE PDF

EERE PDF Enhanced Geo Basics
The US could be producing 32 million times more geothermal electrical power than it does at present.

The U.S. produces more than 100,000 gigawatt-hours per year of geothermal electricity already, but it could produce as much as 3.2 trillion gigawatt-hours.

...the Earth's heat never stops—meaning a geothermal power plant can produce electricity as regularly as a nuclear power plant can. And it also has nearly no emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change. _SciAm

Geothermal power plants are currently located in areas with natural hot springs and geysers, such as this planned 15MW plant in the US state Nevada.
Enhanced geothermal will be a whole new ballgame. That is where the lion's share of geothermal power can be tapped, but it will require expensive deep drilling technology which has not yet been perfected for this purpose. It will also require new forms of ultra-deep fraccing of hot rock, to enhance deep crustal heat exchange for energy extraction.

The hazard of earthquate-triggering is routinely hyped and inflated, as is natural whenever a genuinely revolutionary energy technology is considered. But deep geothermal drilling cannot create new seismic faults where none exist, nor will the technology increase tension on pre-existing faults. Enhanced geothermal can either drill in seismically active -- or seismically inactive regions. In the inactive regions, there is no problem. For seismically active locations, the technology of enhanced geothermal is more likely to prevent large earthquakes, by facilitating smaller tension-relieving quakes.

The potential is certainly there. But the technology and the economics needs to catch up to the potential. That will take time and investment. By transferring all investment away from wasteful and ineffectual wind and solar, over to technologies with solid 24 hour / 365 day baseload potential, society would be taking a big step forward.

Is the Obama Regime in Danger of Running Out of Energy?

Is the Obama administration giving the "kiss of death" to small modular reactors (SMRs)? It looks as if the regime is pretending to support SMRs while behind the scenes it is boosting the organisations who oppose them -- and all nuclear reactors. Certainly Greg Jaczko _-- Obama's chief of the NRC -- seems to want to regulate SMRs the same way as large 1 - 1.5 GW reactors are regulated. That is total idiocy, of course, but it is the bureaucratic mindset.

Nations such as Japan issue nuclear-power permits within six years while the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission may take at least 10 years, Upton, a Michigan Republican, said today in Washington. Lawmakers will examine the time required to approve new U.S. plants, Upton said.

“If you can shorten the time, you’re going to reduce the costs perhaps in the billions of dollars per reactor,” Upton said in an interview. “That’s a good thing.”

The House committee, which has jurisdiction for energy legislation, plans to tackle individual issues such as faster nuclear-plant licensing rather than seeking to pass “1,000-page bills” that are more comprehensive, he said. _Bloomberg

On every front, US President Obama seems to oppose all forms of reliable energy production. His EPA is trying to find ways to shut down unconventional oil & gas production, his Interior Deparment has already effectively shut down new offshore oil & gas production, his administration wants to shut down coal plants and mines, and to stop importing Canadian oil sands -- all out of carbon hysteria. Perhaps worst of all, Obama's NRC has been dragging its feed on safer, more reliable, and cheaper new nuclear reactor designs. Obama wants the US to rely on unreliable forms of energy such as solar and wind -- guaranteeing future blackouts and freeze-outs which are likely to cost lives.

Texas has already suffered rolling blackouts due to over-investment in wind [and the UK has suffered power "reductions" -- also see comment by Weekend Yachtsman. AF], and under-investment in nuclear. As Obama pushes the US into fool-hardy forms of energy dependency, expect things to only get worse. The US is long overdue for a return to more reliable forms of energy.

To say the U.S. has a lot of catching up to do in the nuclear power race doesn't come close to the reality. Consider these statistics, based on Nuclear Energy Agency data: France gets 77% of its electricity from nuclear plants; Sweden, 42%; Switzerland, 39%; South Korea, 37%; and Finland, 30%. The U.S.? A mere 20%.

...If the U.S. chooses to not reprocess nuclear waste, Nevada's Yucca Mountain (or some other storage facility at an out-of-the-way site to be named later) could be pressed into use. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a proponent of green and renewable energy, has often noted the odd U.S. stance regarding nuclear power compared to our democratic cousins in France. The U.S. is too afraid to store nuclear waste in the middle of the desert at Yucca Mountain while French mayors campaign to have nuclear reactors built in their towns to create jobs.

...One out-of-date argument against nuclear power concerns its cost, but new, refined nuclear plants based on simple modular designs have eliminated that concern, The Economist magazine reported. Further, modularity allows plant builders to incrementally add power generation if electricity demand increases. Modularity, with its smaller initial construction costs, also shortens the break-even timetable for utilities.

...it seems almost implausible -- indeed, irrational -- that technology and innovation powerhouse U.S. would pioneer a revolutionary technology like nuclear power and then walk away from it when it's refined, leaving other nations to apply it to their social, economic and environmental benefit.

France, China, and the U.K., among others, recognize that nuclear power represents a win-win on climate change and self-sufficiency grounds. It's time the U.S. realized it as well, and started making up for decades of lost time -- and energy. _DailyFinance

In reality, nuclear alone cannot prevent a new dark age. It will most definitely require clean coal, unconventional and conventional gas, offshore and unconventional oil, Canadian oil sands, Green River kerogens, plus biofuels and nuclear energy. Enhanced geothermal could provide excellent power as well.

Obama -- for all his hatred of European "imperialism" against the third world -- seems to want to ape a lot of Europe's policies. This is unfortunate, since most of the policies Obama wishes to imitate, lead only to financial and societal ruin. Go figure.

Perhaps it is time that enlightened individuals around the world began to learn how to do things for themselves -- learn to bypass corrupt governments and their autocratic, irrationally arbitrary ways of inaction in the face of critical need.

Obama is not the only president who has neglected this problem -- but his policies of "energy starvation" are particularly egregious in terms of trying to shut down and delay all reliable forms of energy, while promoting decidedly unreliable forms such as solar and wind.

Adapted from an article at Al Fin blog

Biomass to Gasoline at Costs of $1.95 / Gallon?

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

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

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

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

—Phillips et al.

_More at GCC with links

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

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

MIT's 5 MWt Research Nuclear Reactor Provides Valuable Service

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Growing Boom in Sub-Salt and Unconventional Oil Reservoirs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Promising Approach to Advanced Biofuels w/o Hydrotreatment

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

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

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

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

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

—Fu et al.

_More at GCC

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

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

North American Oil Boom Moves into Manitoba

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many Roads Lead to Biofuels and Bioenergy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update on Rossi's LENR and Chennai Cold Fusion Conference

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Undersea Nuclear Reactors Can Find Multiple Uses

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taken from an earlier article at Al Fin blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another Look at Small Modular Reactors, and the NRC Process

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russia Desperate for Outside Expertise to Produce Oil&Gas

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

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

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

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

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

A Novel Approach to Small Fusion

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

According to the FocusFusionSociety website:

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

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

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

NextBigFuture HyperV

Brian Wang has more at NextBigFuture including graphics.

HyperV PDF Presentation on Mini-Railgun Plasma Injectors

More Technical Papers about HyperV's research

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

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