More Efficient CO2 to Methanol Conversions

University of Cincinnati researchers claim to have developed a "highly efficient" reduction and hydrolysis of CO2 to methanol.

A paper on their work was published online 14 June in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels.

Transforming CO2 into methane, the most reduced form of carbon, under homogeneous conditions can be accomplished using silanes as the reducing reagents. Reducing CO2 to methanol would be even more desirable for the advantages of transporting a liquid fuel rather than a gas.

...In this paper, we report a highly efficient nickel system for the catalytic hydroboration of CO2 to methoxyboryl species using a simple borane. The reactions operate at room temperature with TOFs [495 h-1 based on B-H] at least 1 order of magnitude higher than those of the related reactions described above.

Further studies to elucidate the mechanistic details and improve the catalytic efficiencies are in progress. _GCC

The details are rather technical. Availability of CO2 in pure, concentrated form can be problematic as well. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 0.04 per cent.

Biomass: From Niche Chemicals Up to Bulk Fuels

The evolution of profitable biomass enterprises will occur by logical steps -- as the technology for biomass production and refinement is improved. Biomass must be broken down into usable forms. The quick route is thermochemical. Pyrolysis, gasification, catalytic synthesis. But there are several ways to skin the biomass cat. We have just gotten started.

Researchers at Fudan University (Shanghai, China) have converted the marine macroalgae Enteromorpha prolifera, one of the main algae genera for “green tide”—massive algal blooms caused by eutrophication of marine water bodies—to bio-oil by hydrothermal liquefaction in a batch reactor at temperatures of 220-320 °C....

...Their study, published online 11 June in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels, investigate the effects of the temperature, reaction time, and alkali catalyst (Na2CO3) on product yields were studied. The characters of liquid and solid products were analyzed using multiple analysis methods, such as elemental analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

The hydrothermal liquefaction was performed using system consisting of a 250 mL GSH-0.25 zirconium cylindrical autoclave, an electrically heated furnace, a magnetic stirrer, a pressure holding circuit, and a controller. In a typical run, 20 g of E. prolifera powder, 150 mL of distilled water, and the desired quantities of Na2CO3 catalyst (0 or 5 wt %) were charged in the autoclave. Residue air was removed by purging with N2 for 5 min. The autoclave was pressurized to 2.0 MPa with N2. The operating temperature and reaction time are two important parameters for the hydrothermal liquefaction process. _GCC

The approach illustrated above comes from George Johns at City College of New York. It involves using gelinators to create gel phase biorefineries for converting biomass to a wide array of niche chemicals -- eventually reaching efficiences that allow for profitable bulk commodity chemicals production.

It all comes down to converting ligno-cellulosic biomass to useful chemical feedstocks for further synthesis. While thermochemical conversion is quickest, it is not necessarily the most efficient. Microbial breakdown and conversion of biomass to chemicals is likely to be the intermediate and near-longterm winner for biomass to chemicals production.

A research team at the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) has developed a powerful new tool that promises to unlock the secrets of biomass degradation, a critical step in the development of cost-effective cellulosic biofuels.

The details of this method were published online on June 11 in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
Fulfilling the promise of cellulosic biofuels requires developing efficient strategies to extract sugar molecules in biomass polymers like cellulose. Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi are capable of converting biomass to simple sugars, but historically have been difficult to study using genetic approaches.
A breakthrough by a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers at the GLBRC has made it possible to perform genetic analysis on Cellvibrio japonicus, a promising bacterium that has long been known to convert biomass to sugars. Using a technique called vector integration, the team has developed a method to generate a mutation in any gene within the organism. _SD

Genetic engineering is the key for creating large scale microbial colony bioreactors.

For the longer term, the "pseudo-cellular" gel phase approach to mass production -- using nano and micro-scale synthesis in easily multiplied modules -- is likely to allow for a lower maintenance approach to low energy catalytic synthesis of the widest range of chemicals from bio-feedstocks.

4th Generation Needs 3rd Generation's Waste, to Breed

4th Generation nuclear reactors are meant to safely achieve at least these three things:

Nuclear waste that lasts decades instead of millennia.

100-300 times more energy yield from the same amount of nuclear fuel.

The ability to consume existing nuclear waste in the production of electricity.

__GenIV Reactor Wikipedia

To get so much energy from nuclear materials, Gen IV reactors will be "breeder reactors." They will take fertile fuels such as Uranium 238 or Thorium 232, and turn them into fissile materials such as Plutonium 239 and Uranium 233. But they will need a lot of starting materials: fissile materials from weapons and waste -- lots and lots of it.

As a significant number of generation IV units start to come online over the next few decades, they will need fissile “start charges” to kick them off. A new 1 gigawatt fast spectrum reactor, for instance, needs to be fuelled with about eight tonnes* of fissile uranium 235 or plutonium (or some other mixture of fissile actinides) to get it going. After that, it can breed all the new fuel it will ever need from uranium 238.
Yet, if all of the world’s stockpile of weapons material and used nuclear fuel were reprocessed, we could still produce only enough fissile material (about 3,000 tonnes) to launch just 400 1-GWe fast reactors in the decade 2020 to 2030. After that, if nuclear power is to continue to expand at a rapid rate, we would need a reactor deployment program where we continue to build both generation III and generation IV units for the next few decades. _BraveNewClimate

Barry Brook is saying that for Generation IV reactors to be sustainable -- with all of their many advantages -- they will need a lot of Generation III reactors to keep them stocked with waste starting material.  The two types of reactors complement each other, since each produces part of the fuel for the other.   The combination could provide abundant heat and electricity to the world for many thousands of years.

 Go to the link above and read the entire argument, and follow the links to supplementary materials.

More on advanced reactors.

Chemrec's Swedish BlackLiquor to DME Plant Takes Shape

Black liquor is a waste by-product of paper pulp processing. Chemrec plans to gasify the black liquor and convert the syngas directly to dimethyl ether in an efficient process. The new Swedish demo plant will have a capacity of 584,000 gallons per year of DME.

In Sweden, the steel towers forming the main process units of the new BioDME-plant were put in place beside Chemrec’s development plant in Piteå. On July 21 the world’s first demonstration plant for the energy-efficient automotive fuel DME, dimethyl ether, will be ready for commissioning and start-up. The demonstration plant will have a capacity of 584,000 gallons of BioDME per year, using black liquor gasification of pulp and paper mill waste. _BiofuelsDigest

Sweden has developed a reputation for innovation, along with neighbor Finland.

Europe in general is developing some encouraging plans for developing its bioenergy resources.

For several centuries, Europe has been the world's hotbed of research, innovation, and development of a wide range of technologies and sciences. Unfortunately, unless something is done about the rapid implosion of Europe's population, the best days of European innovation are likely behind us -- other than a last hurrah! which is being largely squandered on the green energy hoax and carbon hysteria.

This Corn Has Very High Energy Content!

EnergyTribune
When you think of attacks on energy pipelines, you typically think of Nigeria, Iraq, Yemen, Mexico, and other violent parts of the third world. You may be surprised to learn that China's energy pipelines are under constant attack from criminals, helping to make China perhaps the "leakiest" nation on Earth in terms of fossil fuels.

China may be leaking more oil and gas from its pipeline network than any country in the world, much of it because of criminal activity. Currently, China has a trunk pipeline network for oil and gas of over 70,000 kilometers, transporting 70 percent of the crude oil and 90 percent of the natural gas. By 2020, the network will reach 200,000 km. Pipeline pressure is usually 100 to 120 atmospheres (1470 to 1764 psi).

The safety and security of the network is now getting critical and three factors are affecting that network.

First is the age of the pipelines. About 60 percent of the trunk lines are more than 20 years old and the pipelines in the east part of the country are over 30 years old. Accidents happen often due to corrosion, inadequate maintenance and bad quality original materials.

The second reason for accidents is the lack of regulations and, especially, not following rules even when they are in place. Because of fast urbanization, sometimes land is used without following regulations or applying for permits. For example, a few years ago, a building was constructed on top of a gas pipeline in Liaoning Province. The result was easily predictable: a big explosion. On May 2, 2010 an oil pipeline between Dongying and Huangdao was damaged by a bulldozer which was operating without following regulations. Just 5 months ago, the Lanzhou-Zhenzhou-Changsha oil product pipeline was damaged by a construction crew.

But the biggest and least-known problem is oil pilferage by thieves who drill into oil pipelines. This is the cause of at least 40 percent of China’s oil pipeline leaks. This criminal activity started in the early 1990s and it has never stopped since.

Although alarm systems are installed along the pipelines, men have to be used to prevent oil theft. In Changqing oilfield alone, thousands of security guards are hired to patrol the pipelines in the oilfield area. However, a lot of pipelines are located in remote areas where no communication exists. To totally prevent oil theft is sometimes mission impossible and the stealing is done by drilling into the pipelines, an almost daily occurrence.

Between 2002 and 2009, Sinopec encountered numerous oil stealing cases with some 19,804 cases involving drilling into oil pipelines and 12,167 cases of direct theft from production wells.

Oil theft from pipelines has become so widespread that even undersea pipelines are being attacked. In 2006, both oil and gas pipelines at the bottom of the sea in the Shengli oilfield were drilled and 70 barrels of crude oil were stolen. But much more oil was spilled and that leak caused serious pollution in the area. The government came down hard on the perpetrators and two were executed. The Shengli oilfield had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the damaged pipelines, clean the seawater pollution and compensate local farmers.

Like many others things in China, strangely, some local people even form so-called “oil collection” teams and get a license to operate. In theory, their mission is to collect oil leaked on the ground and clean up the pollution. This gives them the legal right to steal oil. Drilling into pipelines to steal oil has become an organized crime, including detecting the proper spot, drilling holes into oil pipelines, collecting oil, transportation, refinery, and distribution.

Criminals drill into oil and gas pipelines for two reasons. One is to steal oil to sell to small refineries which rely on stolen oil to maintain crude supply. Another is to deliberately cause an oil leak and then ask for pollution compensation, which usually happens in poor rural areas. _EnergyTribune

The photo above shows a corn field that has become saturated with leaking oil from a pilfered oil pipeline. When burned, such corn should release an unusually high level of heat. Not the type of modification of corn being attempted in western nations, but consider it thinking outside of the box.

Algae Biomass Promises to Impact Energy Markets

PetroAlgae
The immediate promise of algal fuels and energy derives from the prolific growth of algal biomass, and the relative economy and simplicity of using algal biomass compared to algal bio-oils. While other companies are focusing on the long-term (10 year) goal of economical algal biodiesel, PetroAlgae is taking the quick and sure route of exploiting algal biomass.

Siemens Energy has successfully completed the first firing of PetroAlgae Inc.’s biocrude fuel, a plant-based, micro-crop biomass material that is processed into a solid residue. The biocrude fuel was combined with pulverized coal in a pilot-scale burner with a thermal capacity of approximately 4 MBtu/hr.

In the pilot-scale test at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, which was conducted in a scaled-down version of Siemens’ current pulverized coal burner design, the biocrude was blown into the fuel injector separately from the pulverized coal. Some mixing of the pulverized coal and biocrude took place within the fuel injector prior to combustion of the mixture. Up to 10% of the total heating value was provided by the biomass in these tests.

The testing showed that the biocrude was easy to handle and inject into the burner, unlike some other biomass fuels. The fuel burned well and emissions testing showed that the biomass/coal fuel mixture produced 20% lower NOx emissions than coal alone. Tests were conducted with and without external air staging. The biomass and coal mixture produced lower emissions with staging than without, as expected. Siemens intends to conduct further tests of the pilot-scale burner with increased quantities of PetroAlgae’s biocrude fuel in the near future.

PetroAlgae’s technology is designed to increase the growth and productivity of micro-crops in large-scale, open-pond bioreactors, thereby creating a biofuel of significant commercial value. The micro-crops absorb approximately twice their weight in CO2, and are harvested every few hours producing two products—a high-quality protein and a carbohydrate-rich biomass material that can be used for both co-firing in coal-fired power plants and as a drop-in replacement for petroleum-based fossil fuels.

Prior to the pilot plant-scale testing with Siemens, PetroAlgae conducted combustion testing at the University of Utah in a bench-scale burner with the biocrude providing up to 100% of the heating value. These tests were performed with and without external air staging, and they showed similar positive results in terms of handling, injection and burning. Firing the biomass fuel alone produced lower NOx emissions than the coal alone, and the NOx reduction was more pronounced under staging conditions. _GCC

A startup in New Mexico, meanwhile, is taking to long-term approach of making biodiesel directly from algal bio-oil.

Officials cut the ribbon today on the world's first biorefinery designed specifically to extract biofuel from micro algae. The facility was constructed at the site of the CEHMM algae production ponds near Artesia.
CEHMM teamed up with Solution Recovery Systems to develop the system, which can separate the crude bio diesel fuel from the bio-mass byproduct, which is rich in nutrients and is being considered as a supplement in livestock feed, he said.
Lynn said the ponds and facility were constructed on land not being used for agriculture and the process uses water that is too salty to be used for drinking or irrigation. Processes are being explored to purify wastewater from the oilfields to be used in the algae process, he said.
The fuel produced is more lubricating to engine parts than standard petroleum and cleans engine systems. The fuel is also lower in emissions, he said.
In fact, the salt water micro-algae organisms in the CEHMM ponds actually consume carbon dioxide, Greg Brown, business manager for CEHMM said. A Sandia National Laboratory Study revealed a 700,000 gallon micro-algae pond can sequester one metric ton of carbon per day, he said.
The green fluid produced in the pond is reduced to slurry from which the oil and the biomass are separated, Lynn said. 90 percent of the mass of the crude oil can be converted to fuel. The remaining bio-mass could conceivably be fed to livestock because it contains up to 60 percent protein, he said.
The sunny weather, open spaces and brackish ground water make southeast New Mexico and parts of Texas ideal for Algae production, Lynn said. _cehmm_via_biofuelsdigest

The CEHMM product cannot compete directly with petro-diesel, so it must be sold as a fuel additive. The biomass co-products of algal production may also be sold as livestock feed.

The Land Use Argument Can be Deceiving

NewEnergyandFuelBrian Westenhaus takes an interesting look at how much land will be required to provide the world's energy using renewable sources. There is no question that nuclear is the best use of land -- in terms of supplying an entire world's use of energy from one technology.

A lot of crucial information was ignored when compiling the data for the chart above (by Clinton Andrews from Rutgers), and its numbers raise more questions than they answer. But the chart gives a rough sketch of land requirements for large scale energy production. Biofuels tend to take a lot of land, due to the low energy density inherent in biomass, typically. Biomass gets its energy from the sun, so it would seem to make more sense just to "skip the middle man" and use solar energy instead. But biomass and biofuels contain their own storage, can be used in existing liquid fuels infrastructure, and provide both baseload and load-following power generating capabilities. Bioenergy is distributed, versatile enough to fit most climates and geographic areas, and can be easily grown in seawater, in deserts, and in dry coastal areas -- as well as on marginal lands not generally suitable for food crops.

Here is a good example of a biomass / bioenergy project in Canada:

In Canada, Ensyn Technologies and Tolko Industries announced a partnership to build the world’s largest commercial fast pyrolysis plant in High Level, Alberta. The partnership, High North BioResources Limited Partnership, has been formed to build and operate a plant capable of processing 400 bone dry tonnes of biomass per day into 85,000,000 litres (22.5 Mgy) of pyrolysis oil annually. This pyrolysis oil will be used to produce renewable energy in the form of electricity and heat that will be used in Tolko’s sawmill at High Level.

The facility will also be capable of producing a renewable resin ingredient that can be used in the manufacture of wood panel products. Ensyn formed Envergent Technologies a joint venture in 2008 with UOP a Honeywell company to deploy Ensyn’s RTP technology globally as well as to develop a complementary technology to convert pyrolysis oil into transportation fuels. _biofuelsdigest

22.5 Mgy of pyrolysis oil is not much when put against the world's energy demands. But when used to meet local and regional needs for energy and heat, it is likely to be a useful amount. When local bioenergy sources are used to fuel a local and regional economy, the size of the resource is more reasonable.

A faster growing biomass -- such as macro-algae and micro-algae -- would increase yields of biomass and biofuels on a yearly basis, and expand the useful impact of any given operation. Many large oil and chemical firms -- including Shell -- are increasing their holdings in biofuels startups and established firms. Shell is clearly less interested in solving local and regional energy and economic problems, and more focused on large scale production.

The fact is, clean and safe nuclear energy is clearly the best large scale approach to electrical power production. And just as clearly, wind and solar still contain fatal flaws to their large scale utilisation in national and international energy grids -- despite purported advantages in land use scale. Geothermal is currently not scalable to the extent that a growing and prosperous world economy would need -- although the potential is there, with more work.

Faux environmentalists of the dioff.org leftist variety are intentionally blocking most forms of large-scale energy that would actually work. This is a red flag to anyone analysing the potential for global economic expansion at this point in time -- at least outside of China, India, and Brasil.

But bioenergy is relatively small scale, low-density, and distributed. Useful local and regional niches for using bioenergy will not show up on a global scale -- until enough local and regional areas begin to wise up to the potential. The local and regional scale is small compared to the global scale, but when you add them all up, their impacts are considerable. There is a wide variety of energy crops, suitable for almost any area of the planet except the polar areas and extreme high mountaintops. (Example: look at the potential of hemp as a biomass and bioenergy crop)

Getting smart about biomass and bioenergy is a matter of local and regional innovation and resourcefulness. These forms of energy are currently not amenable to top-down solutions on a grand scale. But they will be. The problem is getting from here to there.

We will need safe and clean nuclear -- preferably of the scalable, modular variety. And we will need clean coal, and gas. Oil will continue to be important to transportation infrastructures for the next few decades. It is too soon to shut fossil fuels down -- no matter how good one's intentions may be in trying to do so.

Clinton Andrews' chart is deceptive, because it presents only a highly selective tip of the data iceberg. Try to see the big picture, as well as some of the small solutions.

4th Carnival of Nuclear Energy at Nuclear Green

Brian Wang points to the 4th Carnival of Nuclear Energy, hosted by Charles Barton. Here is a short excerpt from the carnival:

In 2007, when I started to think about factory manufacture of reactors as a means of lowering nuclear costs, I quickly realized that factory built reactors would have to be small, in order to facilitate their transportation outside factories. I Googled small reactors and out popped a piece on economies of scale Rod Adams had written in 1996! "This Adams guy is smart," I thought, and so he is.

Rod, was not the first person to see advantages to the small modular nuclear reactor approach. Kirk Sorensen, of Energy from Thorium has demonstrated that in the mid 1960's Oak Ridge National Laboratory reactor designers were engage is working out the design of a nuclear plant housing 4 small 250 MWe Molten Salt Reactors. Kirk has copied old ORNL research reports, that demonstrate exactly how advanced thinking was at Oak Ridge in the 1960's. Not only are the reports interesting, but they also contain attractive, detailed drawings of reactor designs.

Finally, retired nuclear physicist and nuclear arms control expert Alexander DeVolpi is seldom mentioned in lists of Nuclear Bloggers. DeVolpi actually does not blog, he knols. Knols ar small, essays, on specific subjects, that are written as contributions to human knowledge. DeVolpi; Knols are required reading for anyone who wants to intelligently discuss nuclear proliferation issues. DeVolpi's Nuclear Scorboard, deftly sumerizes objections that have historically been made against nuclear power, and the facts that are known today.

Heavy investment in Thorium energy would staunch the energy crisis, blunt the fears of nuclear proliferation, reduce nuclear waste, and conceivably put nuclear power in vehicles, even. Thor knows it. To get the quick digest version, check out this Wired article. To go more in depth, check out Energy From Thorium and This Week in Nuclear. If I had a million dollars, I’d drop it into Thorium energy development. This is the magic bullet.

Is Thorium energy "the magic bullet?" Perhaps. But some form of breeder technology is likely to become a crucial "bridge technology" connecting our current relatively primitive forms of energy production to more advanced forms of energy technologies such as nuclear fusion, and other sophisticated ways of manipulating matter at atomic and sub-atomic levels.

Growing Biofuels Can Boost Rural Economies

Not all renewable energy strategies are as economically destructive and counter-productive as big wind and big solar. As we devise better ways of growing biomass and creating energy and fuels from biomass and bio-oils, we can bring about a renaissance of economic activity across large regions of rural North America.

[US Secretary of Agriculture]Vilsack says we need to build both the production and distribution systems for renewable fuels. “We’re working hard to get that long term commitment for the financial support. We want to figure out ways to make sure that we get the credit that is necessary to build these biorefineries and maintain them through tough times. We want to increase research and development in advanced biofuels and feedstocks and figure out how to do things more efficiently,” said Vilsack. _DomesticFuel

There is also an enormous opportunity for rural America as we dramatically increase the use of biofuels, ranging from corn ethanol to promising new technologies like cellulosic ethanol and other even more advanced forms of biofuel.

Our goal is to more than triple America’s biofuel production in the next twelve years, cutting oil imports by $41 billion. Instead of sending that $41 billion overseas, we can invest it right here in America. Instead of depending on oil fields in other countries, we’ll depend on farm fields in America’s heartland.

...The next logical step may be to produce ethanol using corn cobs and some of the corn stover. Emerging technologies will also derive celulosic ethanol from lumber and agricultural residues like wheat straw and rice straw.

We are also supporting the development of biofuels from perennial grasses like switchgrass or miscanthus, which can become major cash crops for farmers while providing the clean energy we need to wean ourselves away from foreign oil. Cultivating these grasses consumes much less fertilizer, tilling and other energy inputs, making them highly profitable to produce and then convert into fuel.

...These new technologies will supplement our existing capacity of corn and soy based biofuels. And with every step the technology advances, the opportunities for rural wealth creation grow. In fact, one study reports that upwards of 800,000 jobs can result from renewable fuels. It represents a win-win for America’s farmers as well as the planet.

...when it comes to biofuels, we have two clear competitive advantages. First, the American innovation machine is unrivalled. And second, our agricultural industry is the strongest, most productive on the planet. We can feed the world -- with enough capacity left over to provide much of the energy our economy needs.

In the process, we’ll not only cut our reliance on foreign oil, we’ll help reinvigorate rural economies across the country. _Secretary Chu and Secretary Vilsack DailyYonder

This trend is a useful counter to the centuries-old abandonment of rural heartlands for jobs in the city. Living in an active and vital city can present many opportunities, but urban life is not for everyone.

The emergence of bioenergy and biofuels offers rural and semi-rural opportunities for farmers, ranchers, foresters, engineers, technicians, craftsmen, construction workers, bankers, entrepreneurs, industrial specialists, bio-scientists and technicians, transportation workers, and a host of ancillary personnel.

It is the relatively low energy density of biomass which extends these opportunities across all portions of the North American continent -- because there is nowhere on land or sea (except perhaps in the polar areas) where life cannot take hold and prosper given the proper assistance.

Here is a Canadian effort to rejuvenate depressed economies with an algal biofuel project.

Other approaches utilise wood or grass biomass, or energy crops. It is perhaps ironic that technologies being developed in congested urban centers will be used to revitalise vast largely deserted areas of rural and semi-rural landscape.

The Green Bubbles of Wind and Solar Under Stress

Small wind and small solar can fit very nicely into particular niches -- such as off-grid energy production. But large wind and large solar projects are another thing entirely.

There has never been a good economic justification for large scale wind or solar projects. Europe fell head over heels for the green energy -- carbon hysteria scams long ago, but is just now beginning to pay a tremendous price for its folly. Any other economies that are foolish enough to join Europe in its delusional pursuit of wind and solar power -- to the neglect of clean nuclear and advanced coal $ gas, will pay a huge economic penalty.

... few if any wind energy, solar energy, and other green electric power installations could make money without subsidies. As governments across Europe curb spending and cut subsidies in response to the Greek crisis, the props to green energy are being cut back. As almost each day is marked by a new, and harsher national austerity plan announcement in countries ranging far up the scale from small-size Greece, we can be sure that reining in deficits will not be kind to green energy vanity projects.

On May 6, German lawmakers reduced subsidies to new solar plants by as much as 16%, dealing another blow to the generally high cost German solar energy industry, already faced with rising, low cost competition from China and India. Italian solar industry groups expect government support for new wind and solar energy power generation plants to be scaled back by 25% or more, in June.

In Spain, where subsidies to the country's massive windfarms and their dependent industries is estimated to have attained as much as 12 billion Euros in 2009, either directly or through "feed-in tariff" subsidy for power sales, government proposals target at least a 30% cut in subsidies.

... Sales and profits for North American and Chinese renewable energy companies selling their products in Europe have declined, as the Euro has lost about 15% against the US dollar this year. Affecting profits more than sales in first impact, profits for China's leading solar-cell maker Yingli Green Energy will fall more than 40%, and Yingli's major home rival Suntech Holdings will suffer a 79% drop in profits, according to Barclays Capital analysts, if the Euro stays below $1.25 in the next 6 months.

This has quickly spilled over to stock price valuations. European, North American, Chinese, and Indian wind and solar energy companies are suffering large falls in their stock price value. The higher priced, higher tech sectors have been most affected, shown by Canadian Solar's stock falling about 50% since April 1, while stock of Suntech Holdings is off by 35% since April 1. Spain's biggest producer of wind turbines, Gamesa Corporacion, has lost 43% of its share price value since January 2010, and 19% since April 1. _EnergyTribune

Without Hot Air Energy Facts
Wind Energy Facts
Nuclear Energy Facts Report PDF

A Slow Ramping Up of Oil Recovery thru the LMRP Cap

BP now claims to be collecting between one fourth and one half of the oil gushing from the riser stub -- at least that is the rate for the first 24 hours. As of this writing, oil is still pouring through the top vents and around the lower skirt of the LMRP cap.

NYTBP says that the LMRP cap is well-placed over the gushing riser stub at the Macondo oil well bore, and is now recovering roughly 1,000 6,000 [revised number after 24 hours] barrels per day. BP plans to slowly ramp up the volume of oil and gas recovered over the next few days.

A cap fitted over a ruptured Gulf of Mexico wellhead is capturing roughly 1,000 barrels of oil a day, a top US official said Friday. [The 6,000 barrel figure is a later revision . . . AF]
Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the US government response to the spill, said the figure was a "rough total" of the amount being collected since remote-controlled submarines fitted the device late Thursday.
The current flow of oil gushing from the leak is estimated at between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day, so the amount is still small, Allen acknowledged Friday morning.
"Production is slowly moving up. It's around 1,000 barrels a day right now," said Allen. Workers are "slowly closing the vents and increasing the flow of oil." _AFP-Yahoo

More from BP's Kent Wells:

"Things are going as planned," said BP senior vice president Kent Wells. "We now have 12 hours of experience with this. It’s never been done at 5,000 feet before, but I am quite encouraged."

BP is slowly ramping up the volume of oil and gas going up four valves, which are like chimneys, on the lower marine riser package (LMRP) cap. The process allows the flow to go through as it’s ready to bring oil to the ship.

"Over next couple day we’ll continue to increase amount of oil and gas coming up," Wells said. _CBS

The reason for the caution in dealing with the upward flow of oil and gas, is that the combination is highly explosive and flammable. If BP is not careful to maintain complete control over the increasing volumes of oil and gas, another disaster could occur at the recovery ship, Enterprise.

Previously posted at Al Fin

The image below shows both the ongoing LMRP cap recovery operation, and the planned "top kill manifold" recovery method, to be initiated near the mid-point of June 2010.

CBS

Soap from Algae? Seize the Day!

Algae can create a large amount of high quality bio-oils. But it is not currently economical to extract and refine algal oils for fuels. So more algae growers are turning to alternative uses for algae and algal oils -- besides fuels.

In March, Solazyme announced that it signed an R&D agreement with Unilever to develop oil derived from algae for use in soaps and other personal care products. The agreement follows the culmination of a yearlong collaboration between Solazyme and Unilever, in which Solazyme’s renewable algal oils were tested successfully in Unilever product formulations. Why it’s mighty: Unilever joins the algae race. Solazyme’s project not only adds a dimension – in this case soaps – to the co-product universe, it brings in an established global marketing player to an emerging field. It also might well confirm why Solazyme is felt by most to be gaining traction as fast as any company in the field. _Biofuelsdigest

This may seem silly to many advocates of biofuels, but rest assured that it is not in the least silly. In the real world of markets, products evolve in a vast market ecology along with thousands of other evolving products. As algal growers learn to grow algae more economically for cosmetics, nutraceuticals, foods and food additives, animal feeds, plastics, high value chemicals . . . and so on . . . and so on . . .

Eventually, the algal industry will be able to produce algal oils cheaply enough to sell them as fuels. Give them ten years. In the meantime, there will be thousands of other uses for algae and algal products. Some of them will make a number of lucky people into mega-millionaires.

Of course, the first ones to sell algal oils economically as fuels will easily become billionaires, and eventually trillionaires?

Fastest Growing Biomass? Six (!) Harvests a Year

BiofuelsDigest
Macro-algal seaweeds can be very prolific in terms of biomass production. Seaweed may be the most prolific form of biomass next to microbial biomass such as micro-algae. Most academic calculations of Earth's biomass production capacity fail to take into account the potential of marine organisms. How foolish is that, give that 70% of Earth's surface is covered by ocean?

Two years ago, the Korean Institute for Industrial Technology developed a process of extracting ethanol from seaweed, which proves to be more cost-efficient and advantageous than other sources of biofuel, writes Philippine Senator Edgardo Angara.

Seaweed grows faster than other biofuel sources and allows for as much as six harvests per year. And because seaweeds do not have lignin, pretreatment is not necessary. It is also not as politically sensitive, does not encroach on land used for food-crop production, and absorbs up to seven times more carbon in the atmosphere.

...In Manila, the Philippine government plans to develop a $5-million (P220-million) ethanol farm at a 100-hectare site in the province using the Korean technology of extracting ethanol from seaweed. The project will be implemented in two clusters, one in the provinces of Aurora, Isabela and Quirino in Northern Luzon and another in Bohol where a similar $5-million facility has been established to jump-start the cooperative venture.

First Seaweed-Based Biofuel Plant Goes Ahead In Chile

The Chilean economic Development Corporation (CORFO) has announced an investment of 7 million US dollars towards a seaweed-based bio-ethanol project spearheaded by the Seattle-based Bio Architecture Lab (BAL), in collaboration with the Universidad de Los Lagos and Chilean oil company ENAP. The project’s ambitious goal is to produce an annual 165 million litres of bio-fuel, equivalent to 5% of Chile’s petrol consumption. Plans to install a small test plant in Puerto Montt are set for this year.

In the US, ARPA-E funds BAL, DuPont macroalgae project

In March, the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) has awarded a Technology Investment Agreement to DuPont for the development of a process to convert sugars produced by macroalgae into next-generation biofuels called isobutanol. Bio Architecture Lab will be a subrecipient on the program. Under this award, the DOE will fund $8.8 million and DuPont and BAL will cost share the balance of the total award, forming a joint cost share program between DOE and DuPont.

Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture between DuPont and BP, will be responsible for commercialization of the resulting technology package. The macroalgae-to-isobutanol project will establish technology and intellectual property leadership in the use of macroalgae as a low cost, scalable and environmentally sustainable biomass for biofuel production.

Efforts will focus on: improving domestic macroalgae aquaculture; converting macroalgae to bio-available sugars; converting those sugars to isobutanol; and economic and environmental optimization of the production process. More than 60 scientists in Wilmington, Del., and Berkeley, Calif., will work on this research and development program. The macroalgae aquafarming project will be conducted in Southern California. _BiofuelsDigest

The planet can produce macro-algae along the sea coast and around artificial islands such as seasteads. Micro-algae can be produced virtually anywhere on land and sea. Halophytes can be produced along arid seacoasts and in deserts -- areas generally believed unsuitable for biomass production.

In other words, biology will find a way -- given a bit of help.

Tweaking Ralstonia Eutropha to Synthesize Bio-Butanol

Work is ongoing at MIT and Michigan State University to engineer the bacteria Ralstonia Eutropha to synthesize butanol using H2 and CO2.

The process to produce the alternative fuel — called isobutanol — involves using molecular biology on a bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha, allowing it to use hydrogen to produce liquid fuels, said R. Marc Worden, an MSU chemical engineering professor on the team. The group is receiving $1.7 million from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy to design a reactor to test the microorganism’s production of the fuels.

“Microorganisms have been used to make liquid fuels like ethanol for a long time,” Worden said, “This a different type (of liquid fuel). It’s more compatible with automobiles we have now than ethanol is.”

...Isobutanol poses no competition between food and energy, and the microorganisms that produce isobutanol would consume carbon dioxide, a green house gas, Dale said.

Gas is more similar to isobutanol than ethanol, which would allow isobutanol to be distributed through existing pipelines and used in cars with greater ease and fewer modifications.

Compared to the electrical car, isobutanol has the advantage of being able to fuel larger vehicles that could not run on battery power, Dale said.

“The power requirements of some motors, you’ll never get enough power in some batteries to do that,” Dale said, “Planes, long haul trucks, most shipping will never be electrical, so we’re going to have to have liquid fuels.”

The teams’s leader, Anthony Sinskey, a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he expects to know if the commercialization of isobutanol is possible within the next several years.

“Hopefully in three years we will be able to determine the feasibility of going to the next phase of translating basic science into commercial strategies,” Sinskey said.

If the fuel can be commercialized, Worden said he expects it to be marketable within the next decade. _statenews_via_biofuelsdigest

Even if such efforts do not prove commercially viable, they will add volumes of information to the vast and growing encyclopedia of the biofuels enterprise.

Most realistic observors of algal and microbial biofuels expect to see marketable advanced bio-fuels by the year 2020.

In the meantime, thermochemical (gasification and pyrolysis) and fermentation approaches (such as ethanol from cane, maize, and cellulosic biomass) will predominate in the biofuels field.

Once the microbial fuels get their stride, however, it is doubtful that the other approaches will survive except for niche applications. The same applies to low temperature and pressure abiologic catalytic approaches, which are essentially microbial approaches without the cells.

Coal Is a Fact for the Next 20 Years at Least; Deal With It

The question is not whether or not to use coal -- the question is "what is the cleanest and most efficient use of coal?" Humans will be using coal for a long, long time -- so learn to live with it, and make the best use of it.

Coal is plentiful, and a rich source of carbon energy. It can be converted to gaseous or liquid fuels relatively easily -- while minimising true pollutants such as mercury, sulfates, and radioactive compounds. CO2 byproduct from coal plants can be used to grow algae for a multitude of commercial purposes. As the truth about the carbon hysteria scam is learned by more persons in positions of influence, the greatest objection to coal -- CO2 production -- will fade away, and it will become an economic calculation. But politics will also play a large role.

In India, for example, coal plays an important part in politics -- as it once did in the UK:

...issues pertaining to the coal unions and the coal mafias have to be addressed if lasting reforms in the coal sector are to be undertaken. Reduction in coal consumption would naturally necessitate reducing the workforce, which can have political repercussions. While other issues such as path dependence and availability of alternative fuels necessitate the continued use of coal, the problems posed by the coal unions and the coal mafias suggest that India may potentially find itself restrained in acting on reducing its coal consumption in the near future. _IDSA

Read more at the link above.

The IPCC and the pro-cap&trade politicos of the western world are living in a fantasy land when it comes to dreams of carbon reduction, internationally. These politicians can cripple their own economies via carbon caps and taxes, while India, China, Russia, and the rest of the third world continue to blacken the skies with 19th century coal burning technology.

Much better for the advanced world to lead the way with cleaner -- and ultimately cheaper -- technologies which allow for the conversion and consumption of even the cheapest and most abundant low grade coals.

Big Green Activists Make Big Money to Scam Humanity

Thomas B. Cochran is a lobbyist employed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, to attack nuclear power on a full time basis. As befits a Lobbyist, Cochran is well compensated. In 2006 Cochran was one of the 5 highest paid employees of the NRDC, with a total compensation package approaching $200,000. In 2006 the largest single foundation donor to the the NRDF was the Energy Foundation, an environmental funding NGO, that also funds many other anti-nuclear "environmental organizations. _NuclearGreen

Some of these big-money big-green activists attack nuclear power. Some of them attack fossil fuels. Since most advanced societies derive over 80% of their energy from fossil fuels and/or nuclear power, it is clear that the big-money greens simply want to starve human societies of their life's blood. No wonder Obama Pelosi has been so popular with most big money green groups. "Energy starvation" is the theme and motto of Obama Pelosi.

These are the biggest of the big greens:

Members of Big Green

Defenders of Wildlife

Environmental Defense Fund

Greenpeace

National Audubon Society

National Wildlife Federation

Natural Resources Defense Council

The Nature Conservancy

Sierra Club

The Wilderness Society

World Wildlife Fund

These big greens go through a LOT of money every year.

They know how to scam the federal government out of huge chunks of money -- not to mention how to tie up vital energy projects for years (if not indefinitely).

Green Inc.

These are some of the big money channels that are behind the creation of carbon trading schemes and scams -- which stand to make Al Gore and his cronies billions of dollars a year if Obama Pelosi can ever get the citizens of the US out of the way of the green gravy train.

When you hear someone say "please give, it's for the children", you can be sure that they are raking in illicit funds through a number of back door channels.

When we get past this green dieoff.org phase of leftist idiocy, we may have time to go back and pore through the records to find out which politicians and bureaucrats were in the pockets of the real powers behind the dioff.orgiasts. Then, if we are feeling particularly un-whimsical, we may consider our options.

More likely, by the time we put this unsavoury episode of human idiocy behind us, we will be too busy riding the wave of an unfolding future to have much time for balancing the books of the past.

For much more information on how faux environmentalists hamper the creation of a cleaner and more abundant future, see Brian Wang's 3rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy

3rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy at NextBigFuture

Brian Wang presents a 10 entry edition for the 3rd Blog Carnival of Nuclear Energy.

The 3rd Carnival highlights the life and death struggle going on between nuclear power and "renewables" such as solar and wind. People who promote solar and wind often oppose nuclear energy -- and vice versa. Here are some entries from the 3rd Carnival dealing with this "cold war" of the energies:

4. Nucleargreen also had the Social Construction of Ignorance: Knowledge Pollution and Nuclear Power.

This is the third of a series of articles in which I attempt to determine if opposition to Nuclear Power is a type of "denialism." In this post I explore Kenneth Boulding's concept of Knowledge Pollution, and explore the possibility that the constructs of knowledge pollution and "denialism" can be applied to nuclear opponents.

5. Brave New Climate provides a detailed analysis of capacity factors for different energy sources

Capacity factor (CF) is the amount of energy a power station generates over time (usually a year) compared to what it could have produced if it had been running at full power for the whole period. (Please read TCASE 2, Energy Primer, for a fuller explanation). The CF for coal-fired and nuclear power stations averages 85-90%, wind farms ~20-35%, solar farms ~15-40% (the higher figure is for CSP with thermal storage). Gas or hydro can be high or low — depending…

It’s very tempting to use these percentages as though they were directly interchangable, and indeed I’ve found that most journalists and bloggers happily do this (or else ignore CF completely and cite ‘peak’ power as though it were the same thing). It turns out, however, that this is a seriously misleading practice,

6. Yes Vermont Yankee looks at renewables and the cost of conservation.

the bottom lines were: Renewables can be built and probably should be built, but they can't take over the load from Vermont Yankee.
It takes money for conservation
Conservation, like renewables, is frequently oversold as an answer to energy issues.

7. Atomic Insights notes a San Diego Union Tribune article that renewables need helping hand from gas.

The article describes how combined cycle gas turbine plants work, with gas turbine exhausts feeding steam plant bottoming systems. It talks about air cooled condensers and about the use of peakers to supply power during periods when renewable energy system outputs change rapidly

8. Atomic Insights had an article which at the end described how the BeyondNuclear.com activists operate.

Nextbigfuture answered the question of who funds BeyondNuclear.com. It is activist celebrity actors and singers.

When you combine the anti-fossil fuel fervour from carbon hysterics and the Obama - Pelosi policy of energy starvation, plus the anti-nuclear fervour from misguided wind and solar advocates, there will really be very little energy left to run an advanced tech-society's infrastructure. Political peak oil as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If these dieoff.org green for brains morons see devastation in their nightmares, just wait until they reap the horrific reality they are working so hard to bring about. The general aim for leftist dieoff.org greens is to eliminate 90% of the Earth's human population. Going the route of energy starvation is a bit indirect, but it should be an effective genocidal approach. First they kill off the parts of the advanced world that fell for the "green energy" jive talk, then they sit back and watch as the cities of the third world die off from lack of support from the first world.

Well, no, actually, "they" will have been long since dead, so they will not be sitting back and watching. But they imagine they will be.

International Market for Wood and Wood Pulp Expanding Rapidly

In Sweden, biomass has surpassed oil to become the number one source of energy generation - now producing 32% of all energy needs. And, biomass-based energy consumption is projected to rise another 10% in 2011

A recent report by Wood Resource Quarterly notes that increased competition for logs and wood chips between the pulp industry and the energy sector has pushed wood fiber and wood chip prices to new highs. Signs of that competition are also increasing in the United States.  __AmericanAgriculturalist

 Total energy consumption generated in biomass in the country has grown from 88TWh to 115TWh between 2000 and 2009, while the usage of imported oil-based products has declined from 142TWh to 112TWh during the same period, according to the Swedish Bioenergy Association, Svebio. Current projections are for biomass consumption to increase by a further 10 per cent in 2011. ___IFandP

Pulp mills are becoming more efficient in terms of water use and the productive use of waste heat.

GP Cellulose's multimillion-dollar overhaul of its Brunswick pulp mill has slashed the amount of water it uses and decreased pressure on the drinking water supplies for most of Southeast Georgia and Northeast Florida.

The reduced strain on the Floridan Aquifer reduces the risk of environmental harm, said a federal hydrologist, who monitors groundwater levels in the Brunswick area.

..."We've put in new equipment with new technology to make production more efficient," Morris said. "More efficient production makes us competitive in the worldwide market and ensures the longtime viability of our facility, and makes it more profitable."

The mill uses the water to process into pulp the 1,000 truckloads of yellow pines it gets each day. The mill reduces the logs to chips and uses the water to cook the chips into fiber....Morris said through a recycling process, the water is used to produce about 70 percent of the mill's electricity.

"We've seen a good rate of reduction in our use of groundwater from the aquifer since we've put in the new equipment," Morris said. ___Jacksonville.com

As private wood plantations become more sophisticated and efficient, the total amount of woody biomass available for conversion to energy and fuel should increase significantly.

An increase in the growth of salt-tolerant biomass crops in arid environments, and an increase in the use of both micro-algal biomass and macro-algal biomass, will add significantly to the total available biomass for energy and fuel purpose.

 New woody biomass fueled power plant in Finland

Award Winning Microchannel Fischer Tropsch BTL and GTL

A British and Portuguese biomass to liquids (BTL) demonstration plant located in Austria and using US technology, plans to gasify woodchips to syngas, then convert the syngas to liquid fuels inside a micro-channel Fischer-Tropsch reactor. As illustrated above, the same technology can turn natural gas into liquid fuels.

The gas conditioning unit which purifies the syngas coming out of the gasifier has now been fully installed and pre-commissioned—with the required checks, system adjustment, equipment and system activation necessary to prepare the facility for operation now complete.

The next stages will include tests to confirm the stability of the coupled operation of the gas conditioning unit and the FT microchannel reactor. During the final phase, which is expected to begin in the summer, the performance of the integrated gas conditioning unit and FT microchannel reactor will be evaluated under a wide range of operating conditions. This will be followed by an extended steady-state run of at least three months. _GCC

More on Oxford Catalysts technology

Microchannel process technology offers process intensification, in the form of enhanced heat and mass transfer, to a wide range of chemical reactions. This paper describes the application of microchannel technology to the exothermic Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process, which converts synthesis gas into a petroleum replacement – synthetic crude or fuels. Synthesis gas to feed the FT unit can be derived from a variety of feedstock materials, including natural gas and biomass. By greatly reducing the size and cost of chemical processing hardware, microchannel process technology enables cost effective production of synthetic fuels from smaller scale facilities, appropriate for biomass and offshore natural gas resources. _PDFVelocysTechnologyPDF

The technology is also useful for converting excess natural gas to liquid fuels.

One of the technological features of the process is the use of the Microchannel Reactor, which Velocys is currently developing in the reforming reaction of natural gas, and FT reactions. By having the exothermic reaction and endothermic reaction proceed at the same time in the adjacent two microchannels, heat transfer between the two is promoted, thereby dramatically accelerating the catalytic reaction. As a result, the foot-print area of GTL facilities may be reduced to about one-sixth the conventional surface area. This enables the facilities to be equipped on Floating Production Storage and Offloading units (FPSO), offering a new tool in the development of offshore gas fields. _toyo

In other words, offshore gas fields could easily convert the gas to liquids for much easier storage and transport.

The microchannel FT reactors discussed above recently won an "XTL" award at the 10th annual XTL summit in London.

The small size of these GTL and BTL microchannel reactors should allow for even greater decentralisation in the production of liquid fuels from biomass and natural gas, and in the production of liquids from coal (via gasification).

Think of it as a fuels refinery in a shoebox.

Catalysed Pyrolysis Yields a Faster Biofuel

Pyrolysis involves the rapid heating of a feedstock under pressure, in the absence of oxygen. When you add the proper catalysts to the right feedstocks, you can create valuable fuels and chemicals amazingly quickly.

KiOR’s President Fred Cannon described KiOR’s technology as being able to crunch into seconds the millions of years that it takes to carbonize biomass (turn it into fossil fuels) in nature.

Cannon said the company’s catalyst — a fine white powder that he showed to me in a tiny see-through vial after his talk — can turn any feedstock, including non-food cellulose, into a biocrude that has 92 percent lower carbon emissions footprint than fossil-fuel based crude. It can also act as a dr0p-in replacement for fossil-fuel based crude, said Cannon, and KiOR is already making it in volumes of 15 barrels per day at KiOR’s plant in Houston.

“We scaled over the last year from a few liters a day to a few barrels a day. Even on the more expensive feedstocks we use, we’re already competitive on oil prices at this scale,” said Cannon on a panel of execs of Khosla Ventures portfolio companies in response to a question from Tony Blair about how expensive the KiOR process is.

...KiOR was formed in 2007 as a joint venture between Khosla Ventures and Netherlands-based biofuel startup BIOeCON. While I won’t pretend to fully understand KiOR’s technology, the company calls it a “biomass catalytic cracking process” — a thermochemical process that produces biocrude from grass, wood and plant waste that can then be refined. The process was derived from the traditional oil industry, by Bioecon’s founder, Paul O’Connor, who started BIOeCON in early 2006 after developing catalysts for the petroleum industry, according to MIT’s Technology Review. _Earth2Tech

Another recent pyrolysis venture

The key to the economical production of biofuels using pyrolysis (or gasification) is to combine as many steps as possible into one step. The key to doing that, is the right catalyst.

The product of pyrolysis is typically a pyrolysis oil, black carbon char, and pyrolysis gas. The product of gasification (which involves higher heat and pressure, with low oxygen levels) is syngas -- a mixture of hydrogen, CO, CO2, and small levels of CH4 etc. The products of both processes require further processing to become useful fuels -- which can be very expensive.

But throw the right catalyst into the initial pyrolysis or gasification step, and you end up with valuable fuels or chemicals off the bat.

Realistically, thermochemical processes for making biofuels should not be competitive with microbial approaches to biofuels in the long run. But thermochemical processes should be more easily and quickly arrived at -- giving them between a 5 and 10 year headstart on microbial fuels.

Biological feedstocks are problematic in that they are not typically energy-dense, and can be expensive to gather, dry, densify, and pre-process. But cane bagasse and corn stalks may be collected as part of other processes, reducing the cost of collection. Once such a feedstock is in hand, it can be dried and densified using the waste heat energy from gasification or pyrolysis.

Robotic collection of forestry and agricultural waste will also become much more common in the future, as a means of reducing costs of densifying biomass.

In the long run, microbial biomass such as algae can provide higher yields than virtually any other form of plant.

Biofuels have a great future ahead -- particularly if they are viewed appropriately as a local and regional solution.