Improved Use of Tidal Energy

The tide rises and falls twice a day, every day, as regular as clockwork. Why not tap into the tidal river to produce renewable energy?

Thanks to lessons learned by wind turbine designers, tidal power is already economically competitive, producing electricity at prices similar to wind power, according to feasibility studies by the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry R&D consortium. And it offers a big advantage over wind and other renewables: a precisely predictable source of energy. As a result, developers in the United States have laid claim to the best sites up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In the past four years the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, DC, has issued preliminary permits for tidal installations at 25 sites, and it is considering another 31 applications.

.... "The whole point of doing kinetic hydro is to have a very small environmental footprint," says Dean Corren, Verdant's director of technology development, who designed the tidal turbines in the early 1980s while conducting energy research at New York University.

Corren's team installed its first two turbines in the East River in December. One has been delivering a maximum of 35 kilowatts of power to New York City, swiveling to generate power as the river swells with the high tides and empties with the low. The other turbine delivers performance data that Corren says will be crucial to refining the blades and gearbox, generator, and control system to optimize power generation.

This month Verdant added four more 35-kilowatt turbines. Corren says Verdant is now working on a next-generation design that will be cheaper to mass-produce, in anticipation of installing a farm of at least 100 turbines at the East River site.

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Although the absolute quantity of electric power available from the East River may not compare with a large coal or nuclear power plant, the potential is not insignificant. New nuclear power plants will be needed, but adding incremental sources such as wind, tidal, and wave power will help round out the symphony of power sources.

Energy from the Sea

The sea stores massive amounts of energy from both the sun and the wind. The Energy Blog points to a recent news story on marine energy.

After sputtering along for nearly a decade, marine power appears poised to join the alternative energy juggernaut, though the technologies are still in the early stages and have no guarantee of success. Developers are using an array of contraptions — from spinning turbines to bobbing buoys and undulating, snakelike cylinders — to convert ocean or river movements into electricity.

The world's first commercial wave farm is scheduled to launch this summer off Portugal's coast. The first pilot tidal generator in the USA revved up in New York City's East River last December. And the USA's first utility-scale wave project, off Oregon beaches, won preliminary federal approval this year. All told, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has cleared 21 preliminary permits, and about 35 are pending for wave and tidal projects, largely off the West Coast and shores of Florida and New England.

Widespread use of marine energy is about a decade away, says Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader for the Electric Power Research Institute. In 50 years or so, he says, 20% of offshore wave energy could be tapped practically. That, combined with tidal energy, could constitute 10% of all U.S. power sources.

I am particularly interested in any energy technologies that would facilitate the success of seascapes or undersea habitats.

More on Nuclear Power Resurgence

Brian Wang at Advanced Nanotechnology Blog, has a recent post up on the wildly accelerated pace of new nuclear plants to be built in Russia and China.

The United States has not had to rely significantly on nuclear power because energy from the abundant U.S. domestic coal supply (reserves are estimated at 520,494 million tons) is much cheaper than nuclear energy, which requires significant initial capital investment. However, from an economic perspective, energy suppliers are taking a second look at nuclear energy, since expected GHG regulations and requirements for coal plants to use cleaner technology will make coal-powered energy more expensive.

Other factors will add to the growing support for nuclear energy development in the United States. First, Americans too young to have seen the effects of nuclear plant disasters are much more open to nuclear development than the previous generation, particularly as younger citizens grow more concerned about climate change. Second, the notion of energy independence and security is popular with politicians and the public who view nuclear development as a way to make the country less dependent on petroleum from politically unstable regions. Further, environmental groups are beginning to come around to nuclear energy because of its potential role in slowing climate change; some environmentalists have come out in support of nuclear energy as a viable option (though most still prefer alternative energy and energy efficiency measures). A convincing argument for a repository like Yucca Mountain or a successful implementation of GNEP could certainly add to the growing support for nuclear energy development in the United States.

Merely replacing the existing U.S. fleet of nuclear reactors could be worth as much money as all of the planned expansions in France, Russia and China combined. Such a development would not only revolutionize the U.S. domestic nuclear industry but would also lead to expanded nuclear technology research and development worldwide. Also, U.S. acceptance of nuclear energy likely will lead to a quick increase in nuclear operations in other industrialized countries that have been hesitant to pursue further nuclear activity because of safety concerns.

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Peak Uranium--As Overblown as Peak Oil?

Recent concerns over CAGW have led many planners--and even environmentalists--to suggest that increased use of nuclear power may reduce CO2 dumping into the atmosphere. But many anti-nuclear activists are claiming that there is a shortage of uranium which prevents any large scale nuclear energy alternatives. What is the reality?

Uranium is a common mineral--as plentiful as tin.

Uranium prices reached an all-time low in 2001, costing US$7/lb, but have since rebounded strongly. As of January 2007, uranium sells at US$72/lb and the price is rising fast. This is the highest price (adjusted for inflation et cetera) in 25 years [2]. The higher price has spurred new prospecting and reopening of old mines. Cameco and Rio Tinto Group are the top two producing companies (with 20% of the production each), followed by Areva (12%), BHP Billiton (9%) and Kazatomprom (9%).

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Deposits of uranium lie primarily in Canada, Australia, the US, South Africa, and countries of the former USSR. There is tremendous flexibility in the production of uranium, depending on pricing and political/regulatory conditions. Currently Canada and Australia are the world's major producers, but producers in the third world are gearing up for higher production with Chinese and Russian backing.


Realistically, "Peak Uranium", like "Peak Oil", is an almost meaningless term. Better terminology would refer to pricing of these commodities--which reflects supply, demand, and political/regulatory factors. Although some people have seized upon this report that suggests an impending bottleneck of uranium supplies for the US, more informed individuals with a broader perspective of commodities markets will understand that markets find a way--even when ivory tower academics can only see government action as a solution.

The important thing is to assure that government regulatory agencies do not make it impossible for the market to function.

Gas Turbines--An Important Part of the Power System

Gas turbines are important machines in the production of energy for electricity and transportation. When used as part of a cogeneration system, they contribute to high efficiencies for scalable power plant systems.


A short but interesting animation of gas turbine operation for electricity generation. It depicts the operation of the compressor phase of the gas turbine.

This is a video portraying the reliability testing procedures for a new GE gas turbine for jet aircraft.

Here is more information on some specific turbine gensets.

Solar Tower Video--Featuring the Pilot Project in Spain

This video goes inside the solar tower pilot project that has been built in Spain. Although not as large as the tower in the previous video, this one actually exists, and generates electric power. A fascinating glimpse into what is probably one of the best large scale ways of generating electricity from the sun.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion--OTEC

A very nice video illustrating Earth's thermohaline circulation, and the OTEC method of extracting electrical energy from the temperature differential of the tropical ocean. Definitely worth four minutes of your time.

Large Scale Renewables--Fantastic Video!

While there is no doubt that human civilisation will require more nuclear plants in order to transition away from fossil fuel dependency, large scale renewables offer more sustainable energy paths for the long run.

The solar tower--particularly one of the designs that generates power both day and night--is one of the most promising ideas for large scale renewable power. Personally, I like the idea of combining the solar tower with an arcology tower dwelling--like the Ultima Tower.

Think of the Energy Needed to Run This World's Fair

Travel back in time, to the 1939 NY World's Fair. Empty your mind of 2007 ennui, and enter the child mind that is clamoring to be loosed. Futures past. Pay particular attention to the premonitions of nanotechnology and replicator technology.

Courtesy of Ephemeral Isle

The Coming Ice Age--Were the 1970's Doomsters Right After All?

Little by little, intelligent people of good conscience are breaking their silence on the absurd crusade of the climate inquisition. Scientists who work with the IPCC are finding their work perverted to the ends of politicians, and that is not science. Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, is just the latest person of integrity to say "enough!"

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.

....Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.

....Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.

More at Source.

Here is a call for sanity from a cooling (not warming!) New Zealand in the midst of the global warming stampede:

“Now, we are presented with an IPCC document that is a summary of a draft of an unfinished report not due for release until May, yet this summary is intended to guide policymakers. It is a document that ignores natural climate influences such as sun-related effects and cycles, and tries to pin the whole of the blame on human beings.

“I hope that people will take the time to read the measured and scientifically restrained comments of Dr Ross McKitrick and his co-writers, who sum up their findings with these words: ‘Consequently, there will remain an unavoidable element of uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future climate change, and indeed whether or not such change is a good or bad thing.’

Source.

And here is more from a foremost world expert in atmospheric science:

A GCM is a weather forecasting model in which the coefficients and parameterizations are tuned so as to obtain long-term results that have an air of realism. The model is then run for several tens of years. There are no penetrating studies of the way slight software mismatches might affect the average values of key output parameters fifty years from now. A forecasting model can make do with relatively crude parameterizations because the short-time evolution of the atmospheric circulation is primarily governed by its internal dynamics. Sloppy representations of boundary conditions, clouds, convection, evaporation and condensation do not mess weather forecasts up all that fast. But the long-term evolution of the general circulation is to a large extent determined by boundary conditions.

....I want to lobby for decency, modesty, honesty, integrity and balance in climate research. I hope and pray we lose our obsession with climate forecasting. Climate simulations are best seen as sensitivity experiments, not as tools for policy makers. I said it in 1990 and I am saying it now: the constraints imposed by the planetary ecosystem require continuous adjustment and permanent adaptation. Predictive skills are of secondary importance. We should stop our support for the preoccupation with greenhouse gases our politicians indulge in. Global energy policy is their business, not ours. We should not allow politicians to use fake doomsday projections as a cover-up for their real intentions. If IPCC does not come to its senses, I’ll be happy to let it stew in its own juices. There is plenty of other work to do.

Source.

Climate science has been hijacked by unscrupulous individuals both within and without the climatological community. The mad rush for power by these individuals will not be forgotten.

Nuclear Power Plant Construction to Accelerate Internationally

This post links to information on the rapidly accelerating plans for new nuclear power construction worldwide. The TVA in the southern US has immediate plans to build two new plants, with longer range plans for more.

This link will take you to a table listing different countries with their current nuclear plants, those under construction, those planned, and those proposed.

• Canada* 18 now, 2 under construction 1.54 GW, 2 planned 2 GW
• China 10 now, 5 under construction 4.1 GW, 13 planned 13GW, 50 proposed, 36GW
• India 16 now, 7 under construction 3.2GW, 4 planned 2.8GW, 15 proposed, 11.1GW
• Japan 55 now, 2 under construction 23GW, 11 planned 15GW
• South Korea (1,7) and Russia (3,8) have a lot under construction and planned

Nuclear energy is getting safer, and newer reactor designs are more efficient. Even newer designs promise the ability to productively burn all those tons of nuclear waste that would otherwise require thousands of years of secure storage. Things seem to be working out all around for nuclear power.

Energy from Garbage: Another Approach

Ordinary matter contains large amounts of energy. Even garbage contains energy that can be retrieved and made to do useful work.

Researchers tested the first tactical biorefinery prototype in November and found that it produced approximately 90 percent more energy than it consumed, said Jerry Warner, founder of Defense Life Sciences LLC, a private company working with Purdue researchers on the project. He said the results were better than expected.

The U.S. Army subsequently commissioned the biorefinery upon completion of a functional prototype, and the machine is being considered for future Army development.

The tactical biorefinery first separates organic food material from residual trash, such as paper, plastic, Styrofoam and cardboard. The food waste goes to a bioreactor where industrial yeast ferments it into ethanol, a "green" fuel. Residual materials go to a gasifier where they are heated under low-oxygen conditions and eventually become low-grade propane gas and methane. The gas and ethanol are then combusted in a modified diesel engine that powers a generator to produce electricity.

Source.

Other approaches to extracting energy from garbage involves high intensity plasmas which create very high temperatures. The higher the temperature the better, when it comes to turning garbage into useful matter and energy.

Evidence Against Climate Alarmism Builds

Climatologists are being pressured by politically motivated alarmists to paint the climate as a "catastrophe." An appearance of objectivity would lack the fanatic zeal that many political crusaders demand of climate spokespersons.

The recent "Stern Report" is a good example of an alarmist approach to "catastrophe-making." The upcoming IPCC "political report for policymakers" is another fascinating window into the political drivers behind climate catastrophism.

The general public can be excused for being duped by such dissimulation. The quality of schools has sagged badly in recent decades, leaving much of the public susceptible to blatant propaganda. People who claim to be scientists, engineers, and "science journalists" (an oxymoron?) have no such excuse.

Time is not on the side of the alarmists, so they must push rapidly for drastic and draconian policies to be put in place, to face a catastrophe of their own creation. Once the policies and massive, costly new institutions and regulations are in place, it will be virtually impossible to get rid of them--even after better science refutes the alarmist's assumptions and projections.

Then it will be too late. So we must all bend over now, and let the propagandists in the media and politicized institutions of science and government do their worst. Hey! At least use some K-Y jelly, would you?

Basic Concepts of Energy--Physics Lecture

It may be useful to provide a Physics review of basic energy concepts. Eventually, we will be covering some fairly technical developments in energy production and storage. This review may help some to follow along when things start moving very quickly.

Termites to the Rescue--Secrets of Cellulosic Ethanol and Butanol

Metagenomics is the clever art of stealing DNA from one species to use for the benefit of another--namely, us. Presently, humans need a good way to convert cellulose--from plant waste and prolific grasses and woods--into sugars for fermentation to useful alcohols such as butanol and ethanol. Termites have been hosting bacteria that perform that conversion for millions of years. Perhaps we could learn something from termite guts?

Scientists are sequencing the genomes of entire microbial communities in the hope of uncovering new genes and organisms that can create fuel, mine metals, or clean up superfund sites. Known as metagenomics, the field relies on studying bits of DNA from a variety of organisms that live in the same place. Thanks to ever-improving sequencing methods, the number of metagenome projects is growing, giving scientists myriad new genes to explore.

...Converting cellulose in trees and grasses into the simple sugars that can be fermented into ethanol is a very energy-intensive process. "If we had better enzymatic machinery to do that, we might be better able to make sugars into ethanol," Bristow says. "Termites are the world's best bioconverters."

Researchers at the Joint Genome Institute, which sequenced some of the human genome and is now largely devoted to metagenomics, have just finished sequencing the microbial community living in the termite gut. They have already identified a number of novel cellulases--the enzymes that break down cellulose into sugar--and are now looking at the guts of other insects that digest wood, such as an anaerobic population that eats poplar chips. The end result will be "basically a giant parts list that synthetic biologists can put together to make an ideal energy-producing organism," says Hugenholtz.

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So you see, metagenomics may help to break the chokehold of petroleum on the modern global economic infrastructure. And much, much, more.

Crude Oil Too Thick? Zap It With Cold Electron Crackers!

Cold cracking uses beams of high-energy electrons to transform the thick parts of crude oil into oils, gasoline, and other petroleum products thin enough to pump through a pipeline. The question is whether a conservative, capital-intensive oil industry will buy the idea. To hear Brainerd tell it, refining could certainly use something like it. A lot of new oil fields have oil that’s too thick to pump, and that’s a shame, because there’s so much of the stuff. There are an estimated 2.5 trillion barrels of ultrathick oil locked up in the sands of Alberta, Canada, alone.

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Cold cracking will have to be significantly better than traditional cracking practices to get the oil industry to adopt it. Accelerating electrons to suitable energies is not a process the chemical engineers in the industry have perfected or grown comfortable with.

For more information consult this literature review on cold cracking.

Dean Kamen's Advanced Stirling Engine and Slingshot Purifier

Yes, it is true. It is possible to provide clean water, and reliable electricity from dung, and urine. Can you think of many places that significant numbers of humans live where there is not ample supply of both?

Dean Kamen--successful college dropout, inventor extraordinaire--provides the means to make energy from dung or other bio-combustibles, and pure water from piss--or any impure water source. The ingenious devices that provide clean water and plentiful energy can be mass produced cheaply, and transported anywhere.

Wealthy inventor Dean Kamen does not hesitate to drink his own urine(!)--once it has passed through his patented "Slingshot" purification system. He does this in front of audiences to convince them that it is possible to do away with water-born illness around the globe. Would George Bush or Nancy Pelosi drink their own urine to help make the world a better place? Interesting question.

There should be no shortage of clean water, no one without electricity. The only real shortages existing are shortages of intelligence, ingenuity, cooperation, and tolerance for other religions and ideologies. Dean Kamen has provided the ingenuity for plentiful freshwater and energy--no matter how remote the village.

High Altitude Wind Power

Flying Electric Generator (FEG) test flight video. There is enough energy in high-altitude winds to satisfy the world's demands. Wind-tunnel data suggests a cluster of 600 flying electric generators, or FEGs, could produce three times as much energy as the United States' most productive nuclear power plant. High-altitude winds could provide a potentially enormous renewable energy source, and flying windmills could put an end to dependence on fossil fuels. At 15,000 feet, winds are strong and constant. On the ground, wind is often unreliable - the biggest problem for ground-based wind turbines. For FEGs, the winds are much more persistent than on ground-based machines, more power and greater concentration. Having conducted tests with models, Sky WindPower wants to scale up experiments and produce a commercial-sized flying windmill with four rotors. The rotorcraft will go into the first layer of the atmosphere, called the troposphere. Sky WindPower estimates the craft will produce 200 kilowatts per hour of electricity in an area that at ground level would produce none because of a lack of wind. Somewhere, the wind is blowing.

Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion--Talk by Bussard at Google

This is an alternative approach to magnetic confinement and inertial confinement fusion. It has an interesting history and may end up being the fusion reactor of choice for outer space applications, due the small size of reactor. This talk by Bussard is almost an hour and a half long, but if you are fascinated by unique approaches to fusion, this might hold your interest.

Nuclear Reactor Construction to Surge

In a response to the threat of CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming), more environmentalist and leftist politicians are declaring the need for more nuclear power plants. This is of course an abrupt about face for these ideologues, and suggests a massive special interest attitude adjustment.

Energy Blog recently reported on an agreement between General Electric and Hitachi to build 100 new nuclear plants in the US and Japan over the next 20 years. If you add new plants to be built by Westinghouse/Toshiba, you may begin to understand the type of new construction activity that is likely to occur.

GE will receive a net payment of ``several hundred million'' dollars once the transaction is closed, John Krenicki, head of GE Energy, told reporters today. GE will keep 60 percent of its nuclear business and get 20 percent of Hitachi's Japanese segment, Hitachi President Kazuo Furukawa and Krenicki said.

The combination gives both companies more technology and access to licenses globally to compete with Toshiba, which bought Westinghouse Electric Co., the world's biggest designer of nuclear reactors, for $5.4 billion this year. Hitachi has used GE's licenses to build plants since 1967 and forecast 100 new reactors worldwide in the next 20 years as energy demand grows.

``We'll just have a much better economic outcome for our customers and ourselves if we're closer aligned and take advantage of both experiences as this nuclear renaissance happens,'' Krenicki said.

The GE-led venture, with about 1,500 employees and based in Wilmington, North Carolina, will bid for projects outside Japan, while the Hitachi-led venture will focus on Japan and have about 2,000 employees, the executives said.

The companies, which together earlier this year bid for Westinghouse and lost to Toshiba, plan to sign a contract for the alliance in the first half of next year. They already sell nuclear fuels through a six-year-old alliance, Krenicki said.

.... GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, is the world's biggest maker of power-plant equipment and services. The alliance helps GE get a foothold on service sales from new plants more quickly as Hitachi is building more plants in Japan ``than in the U.S. or than in Europe for that matter,'' Krenicki said.

The companies, which make so-called boiling water reactors, also will look to develop pressurized reactor technology like those made by Westinghouse and Areva, Krenicki said.

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