A scary strategic problem - no oil

[Edward Campbell]

$2.00 a gallon?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/277246/achieving-2-gas-robert-zubrin

What arrant nonsense.  :facepalm:

 

[a_majoor]

Re reading the article, the only thing that strikes me as out of sync is the timeline.

The processs of making Methanol is well known and scalable, so there is little reason to suppose Methanol production won't scale if demand were to rise.

Making vehicles which can use Methanol is another thing; Methanol fuel systems need to be made out of different materials than ordinary Diesel or gasoline engines since the Methanol will eat away rubber and many synthetic materials in fuel hoses and gaskets. Multi fuel vehicles will also need extensively reprogrammed computers and few multi fuel vehicles actually run on mixtures of fuel; the driver will have to drain the tank of one fuel to effectively use the other type. Finally, vehicles typically last 10 years in normal service, even a 100% conversion rate will take a decade to convert the fleet. Zubrins proposal will take decades to impliment and effect prices.

A more serious proposal would be to convert municiple fleets like busses, utility vehicles and garbage trucks to straight Methanol fuel. They fuel up at central facilities, making conversion of the supply system easier and would make a fairly large dent in the overall fuel consumption. This won't increase methanol demand to the extent that Zubrin is calling for, but it will save some oil consumption and taxpayer dollars as well (since the municiple fleet won't be paying $4.00/gal or higher).

 

[a_majoor]

Another company jumps in with a process to convert non food biomass into ethanol:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/09/way-to-make-motor-fuel-out-of-wood.html

[/quote]
A Way to Make Motor Fuel Out of Wood

NY Times - A Georgia company says it has overcome a major roadblock in turning agricultural waste into vehicle fuel and other useful chemicals by experimenting with a technology that treats the waste with compressed water heated to very high temperatures. The goal is to accomplish something that has eluded a dozen companies in recent years despite big government inducements: to commercialize a technology for making use of cellulosic biomass, or wood chips, switchgrass and the nonedible parts of crops.

Renmatix, the leading producer of cellulosic sugars, today unveiled the PlantroseTM process, the company’s commercial approach to producing sugars more cheaply than ever before. Access to non food derived low-cost industrial sugars, the foundation of the emerging bioindustrial economy, will trigger a dramatic shift from petroleum-based fuels and chemicals to cost-effective biobased alternatives.

At Renmatix’s demonstration facility in Kennesaw, Georgia, the company has already scaled its process to convert three dry tons of woody biomass to sugars daily.

PlantroseTM and Supercritical Hydrolysis

Renmatix’s PlantroseTM process is the first to break down cellulose at industrial scale through supercritical hydrolysis, which utilizes water at elevated temperatures and pressures to quickly solubilize cellulose. The supercritical state of matter has long been utilized in industrial processes including coffee decaffeination and pharmaceutical applications.

Before the arrival of the Plantrose process, supercritical water had never successfully yielded sugar from biomass at significant scale. The process breaks down a wide range of non-food biomass in seconds, uses no significant consumables and produces much of its own process energy. Current methods of breaking down biomass require expensive enzymes or harsh chemicals, and can take up to three days to yield sugars. With its water-based approach, Renmatix is able to provide cellulosic sugar affordably and on large-scale.

“Sugar has game-changing potential for the bio-based fuels and chemicals market,” said John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Renmatix board member. “The Renmatix breakthrough enables access to affordable non-food based sugar on an industrial scale.”

Doerr, who earned his reputation with early investments in Amazon, Google, Sun Microsystems and other tech giants, led today’s discussion on the role of sugar in scaling bio-based fuels and chemicals. The panel comprised a broad representation of bioindustry leaders: Paul Bryan, head of the Department of Energy’s Biomass Program; John Melo, CEO of Amyris, a synthetic biology company working to reduce the cost of lower carbon, second generation, biofuels and chemicals; and DuPont’s industrial biosciences strategy leader, Vik Prabhu. An intimate group of bioindustry peers joined Renmatix, Governor Tom Corbett and local Pennsylvania partners for the roundtable discussion and technology reveal.

“In the twentieth century, petroleum was the basis for making materials, chemicals and fuels. In the twenty-first century, sugar is replacing petroleum as the raw material for those industries,” said Mike Hamilton, CEO of Renmatix. “Renmatix will provide those sugars faster and cheaper than anyone else, and our move to the Greater Philadelphia area will enables us to attract the talented material science and engineering talent we’ll need to scale rapidly.”
[/quote]

 

[a_majoor]

No oil indeed. The idiotic last line about appropriating the royalties of the oil fields to prop up "green energy" marks this as an NPR piece, but otherwise it is interesting reporting:

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/25/140784004/new-boom-reshapes-oil-world-rocks-north-dakota

New Boom Reshapes Oil World, Rocks North Dakota
by NPR Staff

September 25, 2011

Listen to the Story
All Things Considered
[11 min 16 sec] Add to Playlist
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Transcript
 
A couple months ago, Jake Featheringill and his wife got robbed.

It wasn't serious. No one was home at the time, and no one got hurt. But for Featheringill, it was just the latest in a string of bad luck.

"We made a decision," he says. "We decided to pick up and move in about three days. Packed all our stuff up in storage. Drove 24 straight hours on I-29, and made it to Williston with no place to live."

That's Williston, ND. Population — until just a few years ago — 12,000. Jake was born there, but moved away when he was a kid. He hadn't been back since.

"We came in right through the stretch of where the Badlands is," he remembers. "And then you come into the town. So many trucks. Semi trucks and four-wheel-drive pickups — for a mile straight. You've never seen so many trucks in your life."

Those trucks were in North Dakota for one reason — the same reason Featheringill had decided to move his wife and three kids to a remote section of western North Dakota.

Oil.

A $1,200 Parking Space

Two years ago, America was importing about two thirds of its oil. Today, according to the Energy Information Administration, it imports less than half. And by 2017, investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts the US could be poised to pass Saudi Arabia and overtake Russia as the world's largest oil producer.

Places like Williston are the reason why.

"For many years, they knew that there was oil in that area, but the technology wasn't available to get it out," the town's mayor, Ward Koeser, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.

But in the last few years, advances in such technologies as "fracking" and horizontal drilling have made, by some estimates, as much as 11 billion barrels of oil available in the Bakken formation under North Dakota and Montana.

"There's oil companies coming from all over the country now." Koeser says.

Williston has skipped the recession entirely. Unemployment there is less than 2 percent. The population, the mayor estimates, has grown from 12,000 to 20,000 in the last four years.

"We actually have probably between 2,000 and 3,000 job openings in Williston right now," Koeser says.

Oil workers like Jake Featheringill are fueling Williston's population growth. He's working as a shophand for Baker Hughes, making enough to support his wife and three children. But with such a sudden population increase, Williston's infrastructure can't keep up.

"When we came up here, we were told housing was tough but not impossible," Featheringill says. He and his wife got lucky and borrowed an RV from a family friend. "We got lucky again and got to park the RV in a place where we were rent-free. Most of the RV spots around here run $1,000 to $1,200."

That's $1,000 a month, just for a parking space. "Is that not amazing?" Featheringill says. "And that's in a 70-mile radius. Just to park your RV."

'Boom-Town Syndrome'

"It's the old boom-town syndrome," says Charles Groat says, professor of energy and mineral resources at the University of Texas in Austin.

A small town like Williston, he says, can be burdened by a sudden oil boom.


Enlarge Gregory Bull/AP
Ben Shaw hangs from an oil derrick outside Williston, ND, in July 2011. Williston's mayor, Ward Koeser, estimates that the town has between 2,000 and 3,000 job openings for oil workers.

Gregory Bull/AP
Ben Shaw hangs from an oil derrick outside Williston, ND, in July 2011. Williston's mayor, Ward Koeser, estimates that the town has between 2,000 and 3,000 job openings for oil workers.
"All the workers. And then you have roads and trucks and pipelines. And then you have all the community services that have to be provided — law enforcement, education. So it turns into a real bonanza in terms of income, but it becomes an environmental effect that people aren't used to experiencing."

In Williston, many workers forgo prices as high as $2,000 a month to rent a small apartment and instead live in "man camps," massive group-housing provided by their companies.

"Just a little room with a bed and a TV," Mayor Ward Koeser explains. "And then they have recreation areas."

The boom in Williston, Charles Groat says, is happening in spots across America. New drilling technology is also fueling boom towns in Texas, Louisiana, and Colorado. New drilling technologies mean companies can extract oil and natural gas from shale rock that was previously thought unreachable.

"Horizontal drilling — accessing a huge area of reservoir — and then the fracking process, which props opens those cracks, and allows the liquid or gas to flow to the well," Groat says. "That's what's made shale gas and shale oil such a viable resource."

But those techniques also raise environmental concerns that Groat is studying.

"There is a danger, here – the fact that we drill so many wells," he says. "If you look at the numbers of wells that have been drilled in North Dakota, just in recent times, the numbers of wells are huge, which increases the opportunity for bad things to happen environmentally or procedurally in developing the resource. We also are not dealing, of course, with the question of greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide as we continue our hydrocarbon dependence."

Global Implications

Amy Myers Jaffe of Rice University says in the next decade, new oil in the US, Canada and South America could change the center of gravity of the entire global energy supply.

"Some are now saying, in five or 10 years' time, we're a major oil-producing region, where our production is going up," she says.

The US, Jaffe says, could have 2 trillion barrels of oil waiting to be drilled. South America could hold another 2 trillion. And Canada? 2.4 trillion. That's compared to just 1.2 trillion in the Middle East and north Africa.

Jaffe says those new oil reserves, combined with growing turmoil in the Middle East, will "absolutely propel more and more investment into the energy resources in the Americas."

Russia is already feeling the growth of American energy, Jaffe says. As the U.S. produces more of its own natural gas, Europe is free to purchase liquefied natural gas the US is no longer buying.

"They're buying less natural gas from Russia," Jaffe says. "So Russia would only supply 10 percent of European natural gas demand by 2030. That means the Russians are no longer powerful."

The American energy boom, Jaffe says, could endanger many green-energy initiatives that have gained popularity in recent years. But royalties and revenue from U.S. production of oil and natural gas, she adds, could be used to invest in improving green technology.

"We don't have the commercial technology now," she says, noting the recent bankruptcy of American solar companies like Solyndra.

"The point is you can't force a technology that's not commercial. Rather than subsidize things that are not going to be competitive, we need to actually use that money to do R&D to create technologies — the same way that the industries created these technologies to produce natural gas and it turned out so commercially successful."

 

[a_majoor]

The 53% figure seems a bit outlandish (thermal cycles are generally much lower), but opposed piston engines have existed in the past (Junkers Jumo, for example) and are even used as backup powerplants on US submarines today:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/10/achates-20111006.html

Study finds Achates two-stroke opposed-piston engine shows indicated thermal efficiency of 53%
6 October 2011

Achates Power, the developer a two-stroke, compression-ignition (CI) opposed-piston (OP) engine (earlier post), is presenting performance and emissions results of the Achates engine used in a medium-duty application, as well as the results of a detailed thermodynamic analysis comparing the closed-cycle thermal efficiences of three engine configurations: a baseline 6-cylinder, 4-stroke engine; a hypothetical 3-cylinder opposed-piston 4-stroke engine; and a three-cylinder opposed-piston two-stroke engine (the Achates engine).

Achates began presenting the results at the SAE 2011 Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress, along with two SAE papers in Chicago; continued on to Der Arbeitsprozess des Verbrennungsmotors (The Working Process of the Internal Combustion Engine) in Graz; and then moved to the 2011 Directions in Engine-Efficiency and Emissions Research Conference in Detroit.

Thermodynamic analysis. Working with David Foster from the University of Wisconsin, the Achates Power team found in the thermodynamic review that combining the opposed-piston architecture with the two-stroke cycle increased the closed-cycle thermal efficiency through a combination of three effects:

    Reduced heat transfer because the opposed-piston architecture creates a more favorable combustion chamber area/volume ratio;

    Increased ratio of specific heats (γ) because of leaner operating conditions made possible by the two stroke cycle; and

    Decreased combustion duration achievable at the fixed maximum pressure rise rate because of the lower energy release density of the two-stroke engine.

In a closed-cycle simulation, they found that the 4-stroke (4S) showed an indicated thermal efficiency (ηfuel) of 47.5%; the opposed-piston 4-stroke (OP4S), 50.1%; and the opposed-piston 2-stroke (OP2S, the Achates engine), 53%.

They selected five mode points to assess the OP2S efficiency advantage over a simulated operating map, and returned with a weighted average indicated thermal efficiency over the five points of 52.6% for the OP2S, compared to 47.7% for the 4S.

Averaged over a simple engine operating map, the opposed-piston two-stroke had 10.4% lower indicated-specific fuel consumption than the four-stroke engine and was accomplished with significantly lower peak cylinder pressures and temperatures.

Medium-duty application. The Achates team compared the performance of an inline 6-cylinder 4-stroke conventional diesel (Ford 6.7L V8) with an inline 3-cylinder 2-stroke opposed piston engine.

They found that the Achates engine demonstrated an 19% fuel consumption improvement over the conventional engine at similar engine-out emissions levels (EP 2010). Furthermore, oil consumption was measured to be less than 0.1% of fuel over the majority of the operating range. (Historic OP engines, and two-strokes in general, suffer from high oil consumption, on the order of ~1% or more.)

The Achates team notes that the two-stroke cycle and its double firing frequency provides the opportunity of decreasing brake mean effective pressure (BMEP) levels and increasing power density compared to four-stroke engines of equivalent power output. The lower BMEP levels can be accomplished with lower peak cylinder temperatures, which lead to lower mechanical stress on engine components, which can therefore be designed to be of lighter weight.

Lower cylinder temperature result in decreased NOx formation during combustion, lowering the requirements for aftertreatment. The increased power density leads directly to smaller engine package size and weight, the Achates team suggested, both beneficial to decreasing fuel consumption and manufacturing costs.

Resources

    Randy E. Herold, Michael H. Wahl, Gerhard Regner, James U. Lemke, David E. Foster (2011) Thermodynamic Benefits of Opposed-Piston Two-Stroke Engines (SAE 2011-01-2216)

    Gerhard Regner, Randy E. Herold, Michael H. Wahl, Eric Dion, Fabien Redon, David Johnson, Brian J. Callahan, Shauna McIntyre (2011) The Achates Power Opposed-Piston Two-Stroke Engine: Performance and Emissions Results in a Medium-Duty Application (SAE 2011-01-2221)

 

[a_majoor]

City and provincial officials will inspect? Do they even know what they are looking at? I would suggest this company pack up and move to where they are wanted, and the ignorant officials can live with the consequences of their actions (Direct consequences, high tech jobs and a $30 million budget go elsewhere, potential consequences; this project actually works and becomes a multi billion dollar enterprise):

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/10/general-fusion-getting-inspections-from.html

General fusion getting inspections from the City of Burnaby

The mayor of Burnaby, B.C., says he’s concerned about the development of a fusion reactor in his city as revealed in a CBC News report on October 3, 2011, and wants assurance the company involved has the proper licensing and oversight.

Nuclear energy is prohibited in B.C., but that can change — although it would not be a simple process, provincial energy minister Rich Coleman.

Mayor Derek Corrigan says future testing of the project's massive plasma injector, which will heat plasma gas to one million degrees Celsius, will be monitored by local officials.

    "It is the conclusion of staff that the current operation of General Fusion at the Bonneville site does not pose any risk to its neighbours or the surrounding community," Corrigan said in a statement on Thursday.

    The company hopes to build the world's first commercial fusion reactor within the next three years.

    The reactor would be a three-metre-wide steel sphere filled with a spinning mix of molten lead, lithium and super-heated plasma gas. The contents would be compressed with 200 computer-controlled pistons and the resulting shock waves, in theory, would produce a fusion reaction.

In 2011 and 2012, they are planning to collapse liquid metal cavity with 14 pistons to check the symmetry achieved. They also plan to compress in 100 microsecond with high explosive the spheromak plasma from our generator from an initial 40 cm, 1E17 cm-3, 100 eV, 100 us life to a final 4 cm, 1E20 cm-3, 10 keV, 10 us life and therefore demonstrate break-even conditions. We presently have 24 M$ in the bank and 47 employees (and still hiring) to achieve these goals.

Other Recent General Fusion news

According to company spokesman Michael Delage, the first laboratory tests of the design have gone well, achieving a temperature of 5 million degrees for 1 microsecond. It remains to be seen whether this approach can be scaled up all the way to fusion - and beyond that to break-even. "There are no magnetised plasma experiments that we are aware of at the plasma temperatures and densities necessary for net-gain fusion," Delage says. "The only way to verify this is by experiment." The firm has raised the $30 million it says it needs, some of it from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

 

[a_majoor]

We're practically swimming in hydrocarbons:

http://energy.aol.com/2011/10/07/utica-shale-may-be-its-own-energy-game-changer/?icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-desktop%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk2%7C103029

Utica Shale May Be Its Own Energy Game-Changer
By Jon Hurdle
Published: October 7, 2011

When it comes to superlative descriptions of oil and gas reserves, the Utica Shale may be in a class of its own.

The rock layer that extends from Quebec to Kentucky with major concentrations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia has been called the next big play for shale gas; attracted billions of dollars in land investment, and been hailed by Chesapeake Energy chief Aubrey McClendon as "one of the biggest discoveries in US history."

It may contain even more energy potential than the Marcellus Shale -- a formation that lies above the Utica over some of the latter's range -- whose vast reserves of natural gas have themselves been called a "game-changer" for American energy independence.

According to an estimate from Ohio state geologists, that state's portion of the Utica alone could contain up to 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which would make it a significant contributor to national supplies of the fuel that will help cut greenhouse gas emissions and create thousands of jobs.

But the Utica is distinguished by also harboring natural gas liquids and large quantities of oil which have sparked a rush by energy companies to acquire leases on millions of acres of land, especially in eastern Ohio.

The Ohio geologists calculate there could be as many as 5.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil underlying their state's share of the Utica, or about a third of the expected production from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, the largest US oil reserve.

The Utica's riches have already generated investment from at least half a dozen oil and gas companies including Chesapeake Energy, the world's leading shale-gas producer, which has leased 1.25 million acres across the play, more than any competitor.

Widespread Impacts

"This is huge from the standpoint of energy independence," said Mike Arthur, a Pennsylvania State University geoscientist and co-director of the college's Marcellus Shale Center for Outreach and Research.

"It could even obviate the need for a pipeline from the tar sands," he said in reference to a proposed pipeline from Canada to Texas that has sparked opposition from environmentalists.

The Utica's potential would be endorsed if, as expected, Chesapeake forms a joint venture to develop the play, said Chris Perry, manager of the Energy Resources Group at the Ohio Geological Survey, and a co-author of the state's Utica study.

"It would be an independent appraisal of what Chesapeake is claiming they have," Perry said.

In late September, Chesapeake released results from four of its first 12 Utica wells in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The wells achieved "strong initial production success," producing between 3.1 million and 9.5 million cubic feet a day, the company said.

That suggests that the Utica is living up to its promise, said Perry.

"We know from Chesapeake's initial production numbers that the eastern part of the state looks pretty darn good," he said.

A Lucky Accident

He also cited a vertical well drilled in Ohio's Belmont County by another company that wanted only to dispose of brine but, hitting the Utica formation, found itself producing 1.5 million cubic feet of gas a day from the well even without stimulation and without the benefit of the horizontal drilling technology that has been a crucial facilitator of the shale-gas boom.

Other companies investing in Ohio's Utica play include XTO Energy, Chevron, Anadarko and Shell, said Tom Stewart, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil & Gas Association.

"What that shows is that very large, well-capitalized producers have all seen the potential of making a major investment on this basis," Stewart said. "These are cold, hard business people making rational decisions."

 

[a_majoor]

Another promising development; the ability to refine hydrocarbons more efficiently. A great deal of energy saving in this step leads to more product downstream:

http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2011/UR_CONTENT_359338.html

News Release

U of M researchers developed “carpets” of flaky crystal-type nanosheets that can be used to separate molecules as a sieve or as a membrane barrier in both research and industrial applications to save money and energy.

University of Minnesota discovery could make fuel and plastics production more energy efficient and cost effective

Breakthrough culminates a decade’s worth of research

Contacts: Rhonda Zurn, College of Science and Engineering, rzurn@umn.edu, (612) 626-7959
Preston Smith, University News Service, smith@umn.edu, (612) 625-0552

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (10/12/2011) —A University of Minnesota team of researchers has overcome a major hurdle in the quest to design a specialized type of molecular sieve that could make the production of gasoline, plastics and various chemicals more cost effective and energy efficient. The breakthrough research, led by chemical engineering and materials science professor Michael Tsapatsis in the university's College of Science and Engineering, is published in the most recent issue of the journal Science.

After more than a decade of research, the team devised a means for developing free-standing, ultra-thin zeolite nanosheets that as thin films can speed up the filtration process and require less energy. The team has a provisional patent and hopes to commercialize the technology.

“In addition to research on new renewable fuels, chemicals and natural plastics, we also need to look at the production processes of these and other products we use now and try to find ways to save energy,” Tsapatsis said.

Separating mixed substances can demand considerable amounts of energy—currently estimated to be approximately 15 percent of the total energy consumption—part of which is wasted due to process inefficiencies. In days of abundant and inexpensive fuel, this was not a major consideration when designing industrial separation processes such as distillation for purifying gasoline and polymer precursors. But as energy prices rise and policies promote efficiency, the need for more energy-efficient alternatives has grown.

One promising option for more energy-efficient separations is high-resolution molecular separation with membranes. They are based on preferential adsorption and/or sieving of molecules with minute size and shape differences. Among the candidates for selective separation membranes, zeolite materials (crystals with molecular-sized pores) show particular promise.

While zeolites have been used as adsorbents and catalysts for several decades, there have been substantial challenges in processing zeolitic materials into extended sheets that remain intact. To enable energy-savings technology, scientists needed to develop cost-effective, reliable and scalable deposition methods for thin film zeolite formation.

The University of Minnesota team used sound waves in a specialized centrifuge process to develop “carpets” of flaky crystal-type nanosheets that are not only flat, but have just the right amount of thickness. The resulting product can be used to separate molecules as a sieve or as a membrane barrier in both research and industrial applications.

“We think this discovery holds great promise in commercial applications,” said Kumar Varoon, a University of Minnesota chemical engineering and materials science Ph.D. candidate and one of the primary authors of the paper published in Science. “This material has good coverage and is very thin. It could significantly reduce production costs in refineries and save energy.”

Members of the research team include Ph.D. candidates Kumar Varoon and Xueyi Zhang; postdoctoral fellows Bahman Elyassi and Cgun-Yi Sung; former students and Ph.D. graduates Damien Brewer, Sandeep Kumar, J. Alex Lee and Sudeep Maheshwari, graduate student Anudha Mittal; former undergraduate student Melissa Gettel; and faculty members Matteo Cococcioni, Lorraine Francis, Alon McCormick, K. Andre Mkhoyan and Michael Tsapatsis.

This research is being funded by the United States Department of Energy (including the Carbon Sequestration Program and the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation – An Energy Frontier Center), the National Science Foundation and a variety of University of Minnesota partners.

To read the full research paper in Science, visit http://z.umn.edu/nanosheets.

 

[a_majoor]

After reading this, everyone should want more oil and fossil fuel energy:

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20111017/111017_green_costs/20111017

Green energy costs 40 per cent higher: study

TORONTO — A new study says the cost of providing wind and solar energy in Ontario will be about 40 per cent higher than government estimates.

The study says people should expect their electricity bills to rise by 65 per cent by 2015 and 141 per cent by 2030.

That's substantially higher than current government predictions that say bills will increase by 46 per cent by 2015 and 100 per cent by 2030.

University of Guelph professor Glenn Fox, who co-authored the study, says that would have Ontarians paying some of the highest costs of electricity in the developed world.

He says those higher costs would erode the competitiveness of businesses in Ontario and pose challenges for low-income households.

The study also says creating 50,000 new green energy jobs as promised by the governing Liberals will require ratepayer subsidies of about $200,000 a year for each position.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Well, we get what we vote for. The myoptic Ontario voters felt some inbred need to re-elect the Slick Willy of the North who has done nothing but lie to us for the last eight years. Can't be drugs, because he's screwed up our medical system also.  :facepalm:

Oh well, time to stock up on cord wood and look into changing my lights to 12 v LEDs. :dunno:

 

[a_majoor]

Israel has discovered large natural gas deposits, which will change the regional dynamics in some pretty interesting ways:

http://pjmedia.com/blog/israels-energy-discovery-game-changer/?print=1

Israel’s Energy Discovery: Game-Changer?
Posted By Jonathan Spyer On October 26, 2011 @ 12:00 am In Uncategorized | 23 Comments

One of the most remarkable — perhaps game-changing — developments in the Middle East has been the discovery of massive natural gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean. Will this transform Israel into a wealthy energy-exporting state? Will it produce more conflicts in the area given conflicting claims by Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey?

Few people are better qualified to analyze these issues than Amiram Barkat — an Israeli journalist working at Globes.

Amiram, please discuss Israel’s natural gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. What has been found so far? What is expected to be found?

Israel had traditionally been perceived as a country bereft of natural resources: “Our only resource is in our brains,” the country’s leaders used to say. Throughout the years many attempts were made to find oil. From Israeli government companies to devout Christians following clues in the Bible and deeply convinced that the Land of Milk and Honey had to also be the land of oil. Some 400 drillings were made during the years; practically all of them ended in failure.

It turned out that the entrepreneurs were not completely mistaken. They were just not looking in the right places: Israel’s natural resources are offshore and require state-of-the-art deep-water drilling equipment to be extracted. The first discoveries were made in the late 1990s, but the two most significant are quite recent: the Tamar (2008) and Leviathan (2010) natural gas reservoirs.

If expectations regarding the Leviathan field are confirmed, what will this mean for the Israeli economy?

The Tamar reservoir holds enough natural gas to provide for Israel’s needs for 20-25 years. It will enable Israel to convert most of its power stations from oil and coal-fueled to natural gas-fueled. Leviathan, considered the world’s biggest offshore discovery in the last decade, is almost twice the size of Tamar. Moreover, Leviathan could also include a significant oil reservoir; an exploratory drill to check is planned for early 2012. An oil discovery would be of great significance for the whole region.

Hizballah and Lebanon are disputing the northern boundaries of Israel’s territorial waters. Where does this matter currently stand?

In 2009 following the Tamar discovery, Hizballah claimed that the reservoir is situated in Lebanese waters. A year later the claim was remade regarding the Leviathan reservoir. Hizballah’s claims were echoed by important political figures in Lebanon, and in 2010 Lebanon filed a complaint with the UN claiming that Israel violated its sovereignty by de-facto annexing a maritime area of some 850 square kilometers.

How does Turkey come into the picture?

Until now, Turkey had no official position regarding Israel’s offshore activities. It is rumored that Turkey quietly supports Lebanon’s claim in the maritime border dispute with Israel. If true, this has more to do with Turkey’s policy toward Cyprus [part of which it rules] than with Israel. The Lebanese claim with regard to Israel is based on the maritime delimitation line agreed between Lebanon and [the ethnically Greek republic of] Cyprus. In January 2007, Cyprus signed an Agreement on the Delimitation of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) with Lebanon. The agreement, however, hasn’t been ratified by the Lebanese parliament. Turkey strongly objects to international recognition of a Cypriot EEZ, which contradicts its own claims in the east Mediterranean.

What are the latest developments regarding the dispute between Turkey and Cyprus over exploratory drilling for offshore gas deposits off the coast of Cyprus? Are Turkish Navy ships still in the area?

In late September this year, Noble Energy, a Houston-based company, started drilling the Aphrodite prospect within a maritime area known as Block 12. Noble, the company that has made all the significant gas discoveries in Israel, received the drilling license in Block 12 from the Cypriot government in 2008.

Turkey had threatened to use military force should drilling commence, but refrained from action. Turkey has two major claims regarding Cyprus exploration plans: first, as the protector of the rights of the Turkish minority in Cyprus, it aims to guarantee that the Turkish Cypriots gain a share in the future revenues from any discovery. Second, Turkey doesn’t recognize the Cypriot EEZ and claims that parts of it are actually in Turkish waters.

Is there a realistic possibility that this could lead to conflict between Israel and Turkey? Or has Turkey, as a NATO member, been warned against escalating the situation?

The strengthening ties between Israel and Cyprus underpinned by mutual interests in the export of natural gas could make the possibility of regional conflict involving Turkey a realistic one, though not in the near future. Israel is aware of this and an internal debate has been going on regarding Cyprus.

Looking from Nicosia, the choices seem simpler. Recent developments in the area have clearly weakened Cyprus’s geopolitical position vis-à-vis Turkey. Greece, Cyprus’ patron, is practically bankrupt. Egypt and Libya, traditional allies within the Arab world, are both undergoing a revolutionary process.

Against this backdrop Cypriot government officials openly invited the Israeli military to play an active role defending Cypriot interests. In private talks Cypriot officials are supportive of letting the Israeli Air Force use Cypriot bases.

What effect is this situation having on Israel’s strategic situation? Can we expect a rapid improvement of relations between Israel and Cyprus?

The idea of an Israeli-Cypriot pact seemed inconceivable not many years ago. Relations between Israel and Cyprus had never been warm. During the Cold War, Cyprus together with its traditional political patron Greece had been under strong Soviet influence, counter-balancing Turkey’s strong ties with NATO and the United States. Until recent years, Israel regarded Cyprus as pro-Palestinian, while from a Cypriot point of view Israel was above all Turkey’s strategic ally. Cypriots, especially from the powerful radical left, drew similarities between Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and Turkey’s harsh policies toward the Kurds and the Armenians.

In recent years, as Israeli-Turkish relations cooled, tensions between Israel and Cyprus subsided. This rapprochement was significantly boosted by the recent developments in the oil and gas sector.

Where do you expect to see this situation heading in the period ahead?

Further discoveries of natural gas, and perhaps even oil reservoirs, near Israel and Cyprus could have far-reaching geopolitical implications, including potential instability. History teaches that the discovery of strategic assets in a disputed territory at a time of regional instability and shifting balance of power is a highly explosive formula. The flip side is that with wise handling and a productive trust-building international effort, these tensions could be defused and the immense revenues could be very helpful for the area’s development.

Article printed from PJ Media: http://pjmedia.com

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/blog/israels-energy-discovery-game-changer/

 

[a_majoor]

Imagine if every building on a base is hooked up to this sort of monitoring system. For that matter, if every building in a FOB is hoked up to somethig like this, the need for diesel fuel for the generators may be reduced by a good percentage, with a virtuous logstical circle forming (less fuel=less fuel tanker trucks=smaller convoys=less fuel for transport=less fel consumption in theater etc. etc.)

http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/articles/111107pilio.php

ECI's first commercial spin-out is energy-saver for business

The latest spin-out from the University of Oxford, and first from Environmental Change Institute - Pilio Limited - provides a cost-effective online tool enabling small and medium businesses to monitor and manage their energy usage. The tool can enable savings of up to 40 per cent from energy bills.

Pilio’s online energy monitoring tool, sMeasure, was developed and piloted at the University’s Environmental Change Institute as part of a research project funded by the UK Energy Research Centre looking at ways to reduce energy demand. It has been available online for three years and in the last year has been used by over 400 businesses to monitor their energy use.

sMeasure works by combining two sets of data: gas and electricity meter readings provided by the customer and weather data, to accurately assess a building's energy efficiency. It requires no additional meters or devices.

Pilio CEO Catherine Bottrill said: "Energy costs are going up significantly this winter. Many businesses will be looking for a way to save money."

"sMeasure allows companies to implement their environmental and energy policy. We have kept the cost for our customers low at a subscription of £120 a year per building. Using the tool requires only 5 minutes a week to input meter readings."

"sMeasure helps companies to use their own common sense to stop energy being wasted in their buildings. They can look at their patterns of energy use over time so they can spot peaks, troughs and abnormalities, which will alert them to problems with their building control settings or prompt them to carry out maintenance work."

Chief Executive of the Royal Albert Hall, Chris Cotton, said: "We have used SMEasure for the last 3 years. It is an inexpensive, simple to access and extremely effective tool to allow those running businesses get a snapshot of their energy consumption over a day, week or year and then take appropriate action to improve efficient use of energy."

Managing Director of Isis Innovation, Tom Hockaday , said: "Pilio, with sMeasure, is a great example of how Isis makes innovative technology from the University accessible for the benefit of business and the environment. We’re delighted that Pilio’s service is already proving its value, and that the company is now able to take the next step in its development."

Pilio’s UK clients include Greater Authority of London, Julie’s Bicycle, Ebico and Severn Wye Energy Agency. sMeasure is expanding into the US market as part of the Innovator Pilot Project with Sierra Business Council. This project is supported by Pacific Gas and Electric, the largest utility in the US. Over the next year, the company aims to increase the number of UK and US SMEs it works with four-fold.

Pilio has spent one year as part of the Isis Innovation Software Incubator, and has been supported by a £15,000 investment of working capital from the Oxford University Challenge Seed Fund, also managed by Isis. Companies can visit the Pilio website and get a free 30 day trial of sMeasure. No downloads or kit are necessary.

The company is named Pilio, after a small butterfly, and symbolises the positive effect that informed energy usage could have on the environment.

Read more about Pilio's other online energy management tools at: www.Pilio-ltd.com

On the civilian side of the house, dysfunctional energy policies in Ontario are predicted to increase the price of electricity by 140% by 2030 (with similar markups on other energy), so a reduction in consumption will help people and business stay solvent.

 

[a_majoor]

Canadian company "General Fusion" is still working on its rather "Jules Verne" fusion reactor...

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/141931203/-power-for-the-planet-company-bets-big-on-fusion

'Power For The Planet': Company Bets Big On Fusion

by Richard Harris
Listen to the Story

All Things Considered
[7 min 50 sec]

A section of the fusion machine being tested at General Fusion's facility outside of Vancouver, British Columbia. General Fusion is hoping to implement a long-shot strategy that could produce fusion energy in the next few years.

November 9, 2011

The world would be a very different place if we could bottle up a bit of the sun here on Earth and tap that abundant and clean energy supply. Governments have spent many billions of dollars to develop that energy source, fusion energy, but it's still a distant dream. Now a few upstart companies are trying to do it on the cheap. And the ideas are credible enough to attract serious private investment.

One such company is hidden away in a small business park in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia. Nothing seems unusual here — there's a food distributor, an engineering firm and small warehouses. But on one door there's a sign suggesting that all is not normal.

The sign says "General Fusion" and warns people with pacemakers to proceed with caution.

The reason for that caution can be found behind bulletproof walls that surround an experimental machine. This gleaming metal structure could be out of a science fiction movie set. It stands 15 feet tall, is crisscrossed with wires and is covered with aluminum foil. Two men are hunched over an instrument, troubleshooting.

The machine is flanked with banks of electrical capacitors, which hold — and release — the amount of energy you find in a stick of dynamite. A siren warns to stay clear: The system is charging up, and with all that electric charge, some piece of hardware could go flying.

This plasma ray gun is part of a bigger instrument, which is still under construction. The goal, simply put, is to create a small piece of the sun and harness that energy.

"This is an insanely ambitious project," says Michel Laberge, the brains behind the project. He's a physicist and inventor with a rusty beard and a college-casual wardrobe.

Michel Laberge, president and chief technology officer of General Fusion, says the fusion machine he is developing "is an insanely ambitious project."

Beating The Big Guys

This story really starts a dozen years ago, when the company where he was working asked him to join in a hot technology race that had nothing to do with energy. He was asked to build a switch for fiber optics communication cables.

"So I was in competition with Nortel, Bell Lab, Lucent," Laberge says. "All those guys were putting literally billions of dollars in this project. And they gave me half a million dollars, and one guy ... said, 'Do something that will work better than the other guy.' [And I said,] 'Oh, OK!' "

As Laberge tells the story, he actually succeeded.

"For half a million dollars, we beat the billion-dollars worth of work. So that inflated my head a little bit. I said, 'Hey, look at that. You can beat the big guy if you do something different.' "

Of course I think it's going to work! Do you think I'm going to spend ten years of my life doing something I think won't work?

So, on his 40th birthday, he quit his job in what he calls a midlife crisis, took the pile of money he'd earned at his old company, and decided to try something really revolutionary. With his Ph.D. in fusion energy, he thought he'd try to beat the big boys in the fusion field.

"Reason No. 1 is to save the planet. We are in deep poo-poo," Laberge says.

Fossil fuels will run out, and in the meantime they are causing global warming. Among the allures is that fusion reactors can't melt down, and they don't produce significant nuclear waste. And Laberge says if he succeeds, he could be worth billions.

"As for glory, I word that as a negative. I don't want glory. That's just a pain. I don't want anybody to know me, really. Not interested in the glory. I'll take the money, though," he says with a hearty laugh.

He knew he couldn't beat the existing multibillion-dollar fusion labs at their own game. So instead, he decided to combine ideas from the two current approaches to make a vastly cheaper machine.

A One-Two Punch

The general principle behind fusion is simple. If you can fuse together light atoms, you can create a heavier atom plus lots of energy. The trick is that in order to fuse atoms together, you need to provide enough energy to heat the atoms up to 150 million degrees Celsius.

When two atoms fuse together to form a larger, heavier atom, they release large amounts of energy. That's called a fusion reaction, and it's what powers the sun.

Canadian startup General Fusion has designed a machine to generate fusion power by smashing together two variants of hydrogen atoms: deuterium, which has one neutron and one proton, and tritium, which has two neutrons and one proton.

The result: helium gas (which will get released into the atmosphere) and vast amounts of energy, which will get captured and turned into electricity. The company is still constructing its prototype. Here's how it's supposed to work.

"Other fusion uses a very complex way of producing energy — superconducting magnets, laser beams, all sorts of expensive and complicated and pricey stuff," he says. "It costs them billions and billions of dollars, so it's not so practical in my opinion. Here, what the energy source is, is compressed air. Compressed air is dirt cheap."

Think of his idea as a one-two punch. His big electrical gizmo starts to heat up the atoms. Those get injected into a 10-foot-wide sphere full of swirling molten lead.

"The liquid will be circulated with a pump, so it spins around and makes a vortex in the center. You know, like your toilet with a hole in the center," Laberge says.

And just as the heated atoms get into the center, Laberge fires 200 pistons, powered with compressed air, which surround the sphere. "Those are compressed air guns ... that send a big compression wave, squash the thing, and away you go!"

Banks of capacitors are a key part of General Fusion's machine. The capacitors, which charge up and release bursts of electricity, will be used to heat gases to 1 million degrees Celsius in preparation for a fusion reaction.

If all goes as planned, squashing the mixture heats it up enough to fuse the atoms and ignite nuclear reactions.

The concept is called magnetized target fusion. Laberge didn't invent the idea, but he re-imagined it, and, more to the point, he raised $30 million from Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and several venture capital firms to see if he can get it off the ground.

Ask Laberge if he thinks it will work, and you'll get an indignant reply: "Of course I think it's going to work! Do you think I'm going to spend 10 years of my life doing something I think won't work? I think it [has] a good shot of working."

He adds, "I wouldn't say I'm 100 percent sure it's going to work. That would be a lie. But I would put it at 60 percent chance that this is going to work. Now of course other people will give me a much smaller chance than that, but even at 10 percent chance of working, investors will still put money in, because this is big, man, this is making power for the whole planet. This is huge!"

Changing The Venture Capital Game

And the physics concept isn't the only big idea here: Laberge is also pioneering the idea that venture capital firms, which are used to taking big gambles but expect a quick payback, can sometimes have the patience to invest in a project they can't just flip in three years. Private funding could change the game for fusion energy.

Richard Siemon used to run the fusion program at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is part of the multibillion-dollar federal research effort. He says radical ideas like this get dreamed up at the big labs, but they get starved for money, which flows mostly to the industrial-sized projects. Sure, he says, those big projects are exploring important physics, "but when they are working on a concept and somebody says, 'Yeah, but it's going to cost too much for the customer in the end,' that's sort of like a non-issue for a government researcher."

General Fusion is relying heavily on funding from venture capital firms, which are generally accustomed to quick turnarounds. This project is pioneering the idea that such firms can have the patience to invest in longer-term projects.

But private investors are only interested in projects that could become commercially viable power sources. That's why Siemon is happy to see private investors taking an interest in fusion energy.

"I really think that venture capital might just come in at this point and pick the best fruits off the tree and run with them," says the retired physicist.

In fact, Laberge's company is not the only one out there using private funds to build reactors based on magnetized target fusion and other novel concepts. Siemon says he's confident someone will eventually figure this out. And that may be an economic competitor.

"Just in the last year I heard it reported from some technical meetings that China has gotten interested in magnetized target fusion," Siemon notes.

China could easily throw hundreds of millions of dollars at the idea. So venture capitalists could have some serious competition. Laberge, of course, is betting he will emerge victorious.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Cheap and easy

 

[a_majoor]

Not so cheap and easy, but consider that e coli is pretty ubiquitous:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/khosla-ecoli-biodiesel-111011.html

E. coli could convert sugar to biodiesel at 'an extraordinary rate,' say Stanford researchers

Researchers studying how biodiesel can be generated using E. coli as a catalyst have determined the bacteria have what it takes to produce high volumes of the fuel. Now they need to figure out how to tweak its cellular controls in order to kick it into high gear.
L.A. Cicero Xingye Yu and Chaitan Khosla

Xingye Yu, a graduate student in chemical engineering, and Professor Chaitan Khosla examine a culture of e. coli bacteria.

BY LOUIS BERGERON

When it comes to making biodiesel cheaply and efficiently enough to be commercially feasible, E. coli may prove to be "the little bacterial engine that could," say Stanford researchers.

Biodiesel can be made from plant oil or animal fat – usually the former. Used cooking oil from restaurants is common, but for biodiesel to contribute significantly to reducing fossil fuel use, there needs to be a way to mass produce it from plant-derived raw materials. The problem is that synthesizing biodiesel is complicated. That is where E. coli comes in.

The bacteria, often discussed in terms of the human digestive tract, also act as a catalyst in generating biodiesel by converting inexpensive sugars into fatty acid derivatives that are chemically similar to gasoline.

But E. coli's natural conversion capability is not up to snuff, commercially speaking, and researchers tinkering with its internal machinery have yet to boost its capability enough to cross the commercial threshold.

So Chaitan Khosla, a Stanford professor of chemistry and of chemical engineering, decided to investigate whether there might be a natural limit that holds back E. coli's conversion capabilities. In other words, does the basic catalytic engine in E. coli have enough horsepower to do the job at the needed scale?

A powerful engine

"The good news is that the engine that makes fatty acids in E. coli is incredibly powerful," Khosla said. "It is inherently capable of converting sugar into fuel-like substances at an extraordinary rate. The bad news is this engine is subject to some very tight controls by the cell."

It turns out that like any high performance engine, the catalytic process in E. coli can only attain peak efficiency when all the controls are tuned just right. The research is described in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Khosla is a coauthor of the paper, which is available online.

Scientists don't yet understand how all the cellular controls operate. It will require a deeper understanding of the biochemistry of E. coli than they have now to figure that out, Khosla said. But his research team is making progress homing in on the most promising part of the conversion process, thanks in part to a new approach they employed in their analysis.

The researchers managed to isolate all the enzymes and other molecular participants involved in the process that produces fatty acids in E. coli and assemble them in a test tube for study.

"We wanted to understand what limits the ability of E. coli to process sugar into oil. The question we were asking is analogous to asking what limits the speed of my Honda to 150 miles an hour and no faster?" Khosla said. "The most direct and powerful way to figure it out is to pull the biosynthetic engine out of the cell and put it through its paces in a test tube."

By doing so, the team was able to study how the enzymes involved in fatty acid biosynthesis performed when they were free from other cellular influences. That was critical to their analysis, because the products in question, fatty acids, are essentially soap, Khosla said, and too much of them would hurt the bacteria. That is why E. coli has developed some very elaborate and effective ways to contain the amount of fatty acid biosynthesis inside the cell.

Precursor to biodiesel

The fatty acids can't be pumped directly into your gas tank – cars and trucks won't run on soap, after all – but they are an excellent precursor to biodiesel.

Biodiesel has so far lagged behind ethanol as a means of cutting fossil fuel use in vehicles because ethanol is easier and cheaper to make. But biodiesel has a higher energy density and lower water solubility than ethanol, which offer significant advantages.

"It is closer in chemical properties to a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia than any other biologically derived fuel," Khosla said. Thus it could easily be blended into diesel and gasoline, or used alone as a bona fide transportation fuel.

If researchers can figure out how to manipulate the cellular means of production in E. coli, biodiesel could be made cheaply enough that the little engine of E. coli could end up powering a lot of larger engines at far less cost to the environment than with fossil fuels.

Xingye Yu, graduate student in chemical engineering, and Tiangang Liu, postdoctoral scholar in chemistry, contributed equally to the research and are coauthors of the paper.

The research was funded by a grant from LS9, a biofuels company.
Media Contact

Chaitan Khosla, Chemistry Department: (650) 723-6538; khosla@stanford.edu

Louis Bergeron, Stanford News Service: (650) 725-1944, louisb3@stanford.edu

 

[GAP]

Changing the genetic structure of E Coli, might just make it an excellent engine to breakdown those pesky human fats into biodiesel fuel......oh.....they got loose?

 

[a_majoor]

Changing the genetic structure of E Coli, might just make it an excellent engine to breakdown those pesky human fats into biodiesel fuel......oh.....they got loose?

Cure the obesity epidemic and solve the oil crisis! Win Win if you ask me........ >

 

[a_majoor]

Green salvage:

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/46519

14,000 abandoned wind turbines
November 19, 2011 by Don Surber

As Jimi Hendrix may have put it: “And the wind cries bankrupt…”

Minnesotans for Global Warming report that in the last 30 years, the United States has had 14,000 wind turbines abandoned. Apparently, once the subsidies and the wind run out, these 20-story high Cuisinarts are de-bladed and retired. This means more bats and migratory birds will live.

From Minnesotans for Global Warming: “The symbol of Green renewable energy, our savior from the non existent problem of Global Warming, abandoned wind farms are starting to litter the planet as globally governments cut the subsidies taxes that consumers pay for the privilege of having a very expensive power source that does not work every day for various reasons like it’s too cold or  the wind speed is too high.”

Andrew Walden of American Thinker explored nearly 2 years ago the demise of the 37-turbine wind farm at Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii: “Built in 1985, at the end of the boom, Kamaoa soon suffered from lack of maintenance. In 1994, the site lease was purchased by Redwood City, CA-based Apollo Energy. Cannibalizing parts from the original 37 turbines, Apollo personnel kept the declining facility going with outdated equipment. But even in a place where wind-shaped trees grow sideways, maintenance issues were overwhelming. By 2004 Kamaoa accounts began to show up on a Hawaii State Department of Finance list of unclaimed properties. In 2006, transmission was finally cut off by Hawaii Electric Company.California’s wind farms — then comprising about 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity — ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.”

When an honest history of this period in the United States is written, it will no be kind to the corporate cronyism that preyed upon public ignorance of earth science to create a crisis — global warming — to exploit and loot the Treasury.

UPDATE: Linked by Glenn Reynolds. Thanks.

Oh, and the queen’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, calls wind turbines a “fairy tale.”

 

[a_majoor]

Recovering waste heat could be a huge advance:

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/energy-and-environment/news/researchers-find-way-to-create-cheap-thermoelectric-materials/1010936.article

Researchers find way to create cheap thermoelectric materials

17 November 2011 | By Andrew Czyzewski

Researchers claim to have found a way of making cheap thermoelectric materials that could harvest waste heat from a range of scenarios.

A team led by Dr Ole Martin Løvvik of Oslo University’s Centre for Materials Science and Nanotechnology in Norway has been studying the thermoelectric effect at the nanoscale for several years.

Discovered in 1821, it essentially describes the generation of a voltage arising from a temperature difference across a material — generally made up of two different metals.

‘It looks easy on the outside, but on the inside the electrons are doing all the work,’ Løvvik told The Engineer. ‘It’s essentially a heat engine but the working fluid is the electronic gas, because the electrons are free to move all around.’

However, the technology been limited to specialist applications — for example, deep-space missions use radioisotope thermoelectric generators based on plutonium.

Attempts to bring the technology into the mainstream, in order to harvest waste heat from industrial and everyday scenarios, have been limited by cost and practicality.

Løvvik said the key to the problem is that a good thermoelectric material ought to have high thermal resistance but low electrical resistance. Therefore, perhaps counter-intuitively, it is important to prevent heat dissipation through the material.

The team achieved this by introducing nanoscale barriers into various common semiconducting materials, which reflect waves of vibrating ‘hot’ energetic particles of certain frequencies.

‘It’s possible to choose your frequencies with care and then you can maintain the electronic conductivity while dramatically changing the heat dissipation — that’s what we aim for,’ Løvvik explained.

The fabrication method involves cooling down blocks of semiconducing materials to -196°C with liquid nitrogen to make them more brittle and less sticky, then grinding them down into nanoscale particles using a ‘mill’. These particles are then essentially compressed back together in a controlled fashion, leaving the essential nanoscale barriers.

‘We use the same kind of mill they use to make paint, it’s a well-established technique, it can be upscaled and it’s cheap, so that’s important,’ Løvvik said.

The team’s calculations suggest it could recover around 15 per cent of all energy losses in a variety of scenarios. The team is in talks with a major automotive manufacturer with a view to first placing the material in the exhausts of cars.

‘This is just the starting point for using this technique to exploit the vast amount of waste heat that is available almost everywhere in society,’ he added.

Read more: http://www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/energy-and-environment/news/researchers-find-way-to-create-cheap-thermoelectric-materials/1010936.article#ixzz1eclHpIzR

 

[a_majoor]

Focus Fusion comes closer to "hot" fusion with their machine. The beauty of this is it is much smaller and cheaper than any "conventional" hot fusion device (most of which cost in the multiple billions of dollars each), so if it works, it can be placed into production quickly and easily.

http://focusfusion.org/assets/lppx/LPPX_2011_11_23.pdf

(long document)