Re: European Union cuts back Biofuel use

Neon John wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 11:20:44 -0700, "Frank Howell"
<fphowell@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Kinda ironic that they will get their fondness wish: A world with
out fossil fuels, except dirty ol' coal.
I see the coming years filled with irrational programs and paralysis
aimed at preserving the unpreservable. Short term solutions will
flourish at the expense of the future with social upheaval and
government dysfunction becoming the norm.

Man, Frank, you missed taking your happy pill again today, didn't
you? Why do y'all fall into this doom and gloom crap? We've been
through this before.

Here's my prediction. This is a good old fashioned inflation cycle.
Prices will generally rise and along with them, wages until the
personal cost of energy will resume its normal percentage of a
household budget.

Meanwhile many billions of dollars in scientific, corporate and
middle/upper class welfare will be handed out for boondoggle crap
like biofuels, solar this and thats and so on. Most of it will be
harmless except to our collective pocketbooks but some, such as
forcing "green" (sic) solar and wind power onto utilities will
destabilize the grid, cause blackouts and great harm.

Meanwhile the evil oil and utility companies will continue to do what
they've always done - supply reliable energy at modest cost, the
above electricity exception noted, of course.

Well John here's where we differ. My belief in the Energy crisis and it's
severity is based on what I believe sound evidence. I'm sure that you have
heard of Hubbard's Peak. For those who are reading this and not familiar
with it, I will give a concise brief as I understand it. King Hubbard was a
geologist who worked for Shell Oil Company and the USGS. No lightweight he
had a masters and doctorate in geology and physics in 1937. In 1956 he
presented his theory of peak oil to the American Petroleum Institute. This
theory held that the US held a finite amount of hydrocarbons(oil and gas)
and that once they are discovered and production starts it increases
exponentially until it reached peak production and then begins to decline in
the same exponential rate. He set PEAK OIL between 1965 and 1970. When
presented to that convention, he was meet by much skepticism and criticism.
Somewhere in the middle of the 70's geologists were startled when they
looked at the US oil production data that was tabulated for that decade and
discovered that 1970 was the highest year for oil production and each
subsequent year was left.

This information is easily found on the Energy Information Agency the
official United States energy statistic agency. I believe that these are
legitimate and truthful statistics by a responsible organization.

If you go to this site: http://tinyurl.com/38dprr and examine the data,
you will see that 1970 was indeed the year with the highest oil production
and every year after the production declined, with the exception of 1978
when the North Slope came on line. Even as big as the North Slope was, it
still could not achieve what was produced in 1970.

Either Hubbard was lucky or his theory was right. Later on he predicted
World Peak Oil between 1995 and 2000. He was off on this mark, but industry
experts contend that the oil shocks in the 70's slowed consumption and Peak
Oil.

The significance of US peak oil in 1970, is that if Hubbard was right about
peak oil in a given amount of geography the size of the US, why wouldn't he
be right about World Peak Oil?
Many experts now contend that we have reached peak oil, with others putting
it more like 2035.

My viewpoint is that this is a very serious problem that needs to be
addressed as all modern industrial countries use hydrocarbons to fuel their
countries growth. Since 95% of the world's transportation revolves around
oil derived products, this is a serious problem that needs addressing.

Solar, windpower and biofuels will not put cheap gas in you car. Without
cheap energy, we must be prepared to pay more and do with less.

Peak Oil is not about running out of oil, as it will take years to decline
before it reaches the point where it take one barrel of oil to extract one
barrel of oil from the ground. It's more about Demand outstripping Supply
and the instability in the Energy markets it causes.

World Demand will outstrip World Supply no matter how many wells are
drilled. China and India will continue to increase it's use of crude oil
products and at present the world is still increasing by 90 million people a
year, who will use Energy.

Those are the facts as I see them. So John, if you can point out some
reliable evidence that this is all wrong or in error partly, let me know. I
did read your post about abiotic oil, but could not find enough reliable
date to support it and much to refute it.



Did you know that there are around 50 applications on file with the
NRC for new nuclear units? Some are in the mere conceptual stage
while others are well along with the site approval process. It looks
like the average size will be around 600 MWe (larger than I had
hoped) and all will come from overseas manufacturers, though GE and
Bab*** & Wilcox will be the nominal names plastered on some of them.
These will all be one of several standard designs with NRC
type-acceptance. Large chunks of the plant will be shop-fabricated
and assembled on-site. The streamlined license process that the NRC
has designed should let them speed toward construction in just a few
years.

I have heard about the renewed interest in Nuclear power plants and I do
expect them to increase as it's the only choice that we have that is truly
sustainable, unlike wind and solar.
The one problem none of these alternative energy's solve is our mobile
energy needs.


I hadn't kept up in recent years so when a friend pointed me to the
NRC doc (no, didn't save the URL, sorry), I was pleasantly surprised.
I had no idea. I wish I were a bit younger and had better health.
I'd love to go nukin' again.

The other major problem is the power transmission grid. In many
places (not so coincidentally, mainly the blue states), the grid is
at it its breaking point, with transmission lines and transformer
being pushed far beyond their ratings.

For reasons that I don't quite understand, proposing a new
transmission line brings out about as many kooks as did nuclear power
a couple of decades ago. Utilities are doing some fairly desperate
things such as stacking new line triplets on top of existing towers
(maintenance and weather nightmares), converting to HVDC where the
voltage on a given line can be raised to at least
1.414 times that of the AC voltage and the amount of power
transmitted at the same amperage increased accordingly. (very
expensive and the long term reliability of the converter equipment
isn't yet known.)

Of course, all of these measures are expensive and the power rates in
the blue states reflect same. One would think that 20 cents a
kilowatt-hour and more (what a friend of mine in southern CA is
paying) would make even the worst NIMBYs reconsider.

I don't think it will take a very long time to have another large scale
electricity interruption for the very reasons you describe. With populations
increasing in areas with chronic hot weather it's amazing that it hasn't
occurred.


The RV biz is going to do exactly the same thing that it did in the
early 80s. Go through a shake-out while people panic and then come
back with better built, more efficient and (unfortunately) more
expensive units.

Meanwhile technology breakthroughs will disrupt things in
unimaginable ways. Consider just one emerging technology - AMTEC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkali-metal_thermal_to_electric_converter

(I have no idea how accurate this Wiki entry is so take the details
with a grain of salt.)

I was aware of sodium-sulfur batteries and how high their energy
density is (and how bad I want a set for my EV) but I wasn't aware of
this derivative technology. I found this in the context of a
discussion on my private mailing list about technologies that might
be used to improve the efficiency of the plain old IC engined car.
Technology that could, for example, make use of the wasted heat going
out the cooling system and exhaust to improve mileage.

Direct heat-to-electricity is the Holy Grail for power generation.
No moving parts, nothing to wear out and apparently no material
incompatibilities. While the operating temperature is probably a bit
high for use on a vehicle, think of the fixed applications.

Consider this. Buried deep in the foundation of your house, embedded
in concrete and far out of reach of the mythical terrorists is a
capsule containing about 10 kilograms of Pu-238. A softball sized
chunk. This is an isotope of Plutonium that is not suitable for
weapons use but, owing to its short ~88 year half-life, is a
prodigious producer of heat. Here is a photo of a pellet of Pu-238
glowing red hot from self-heating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator_plutonium_pellet.jpg

This 10Kg of Pu would produce something in the neighborhood of 6000
watts of heat. Continuously and with no external input. Attached to
this heat source, perhaps through a molten metal (lead, bismuth, etc)
circuit is an AMTEC that generates 1,200 watts of electrical energy
(assuming 20% conversion efficiency). That's 1,200 watts
continuously, 24/7, 365 days a year. It will have dropped to half
that in about 88 years - a single Pu lifetime.

1,200 watts is 28kWh a day and about 880kWh per month. That's what
the average household uses in electricity. But it gets better. The
heat rejected from the AMTEC at an estimated 500 deg F, is very high
quality and can run a sterling engine heat pump, a sterling engine
generator, absorption refrigeration, provide comfort heat and hot
water, heat your hot tub, melt the snow from your driveway and any
number of other heat-related tasks.

With so much of the house's energy usage supplied directly by the
heat from the RTG, the electrical demand is minimal - lighting,
entertainment and a few ohter things. 880kWh would likely be much
more electricity than a house would use in a month.

Some of that essentially free energy could be used to electrolyze
water so that one could continue to cook with "gas", the gas being
hydrogen this time. It might also be the only way that the "hydrogen
economy" might ever make any sense.

Pu-238 is cheap, being a currently unwanted byproduct of nuclear
fission. In its oxide form, it is a chemically stable ceramic. It
emits no penetrating radiation (alpha emission only) and is easily
contained. Other than the AMEC, nothing in this scenario is exotic.
Even taking the AMEC out of the picture and using all the heat to run
Sterling engines (a 100+ year old technology), the system still
works. The AMEC simply makes it work better.

Increase the size of the system, perhaps by 2, and one can fuel his
electric car with almost free energy.

Maintenance would involve little more than an annual survey by a
health-physicist to make sure the Pu capsule hasn't leaked,
lubricating any motors or other mechanisms and cleaning the dirt off
the various heat radiators.

The cost would be modest, much less than a mid-sized car today, and
could be financed as part of the mortgage if desired. Currently, the
free piston Sterling generator is probably the most expensive part
and that's only because they're currently hand-made. They're no
more complicated and use no more exotic materials than a home air
conditioner compressor.

Visualize this energy architecture. Nuclear plants are built near
manufacturing centers to provide both electricity and process heat to
the factories. Others are built near large cesspools, er, cities to
supply those high density loads with both electricity and thermal
energy (steam). The reactors are designed to breed both Pu-239 for
recycling into new nuclear fuel and Pu-238 to be used for
radiothermal heat sources.

Houses for ordinary people would not be connected to the grid but
would use RTG systems as described above. McMansions, commercial
districts and so on would need and pay for grid power.

Remember when you're considering this idea that the initial fuel load
is your lifetime fuel supply. With an 88 year half-life, the system
will still be making half its initial heat when you're in the
geezer's home. You (or probably your dad) pays for the fuel once and
that's it.

An economy would build around the fuel. It may be that after 40
years the system isn't supplying one person's energy needs or perhaps
his needs have increased and he needs a larger heat source.
Partially depleted capsules would be removed by specialists and
replaced by new ones with the old ones headed off to be recycled or
installed in smaller generators.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that will be needed to solve the future
energy needs in a world where oil is scarce and thereby expensive. Now if a
viable replacement for transportation energy can be found even better.


The sealed capsule emits no radiation so there is none of the bubble
suits, long handled manipulators or any of the other "nuclear" stuff
you see in SciFi movies. If the capsule wasn't red hot, you could
handle it with your bare hands. It would be transported in a
container suitable to provide cooling, security from theft and
protect it from damage in the event of a traffic accident.

The only thing blocking a "nuclear economy" such as this is the
political will. Wouldn't "energy too cheap to meter*", as famously
described by AEC chairman Lewis Strauss be nice? There is no
technical barrier to that condition, just lack of political backbone.

John


* When Strauss said the following:

"It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their
homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, will know of great
periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history,
will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the
air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience
a lifespan far longer than ours as disease yields and man comes to
understand what causes him to age."

in 1954, he was NOT saying that energy would be free, as he has been
widely accused of. What he was saying was that energy sufficiently
cheap to generate makes it not worth the cost and effort to meter.
Most of the cost would be in the infrastructure to get the energy to
you. Just as your internet service is too cheap to meter and is
instead billed at a flat rate, so could electricity.

Interesting, isn't it, that all of his predictions except for
electricity have already or are coming true.

Further reading on the topic

http://www.atomicinsights.com/AI_03-09-05.html



--
Frank Howell


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