Feb
8
Methane Is the Future
February 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Its as safe a declaration as can be made, methane, the main part of natural gas is a major future fuel.
Case Item No. 1:
In the U.S. alone, the combination of horizontal drilling and reservoir fracturing services becoming more affordable has moved up the U.S. reserve by 35% in existing fields of 2007 to 2009. Fracking and horizontal drilling technology is working at the source of the methane fuel system. The U.S. oil and gas business is leading the way. John Curtis, a leader of the U.S. Potential Gas Committee says, “Our knowledge of the geological endowment of technically recoverable gas continues to improve with each assessment. Furthermore, new and advanced exploration, well drilling and completion technologies are allowing us increasingly better access to domestic gas resources – especially ‘unconventional’ gas – which, not all that long ago, were considered impractical or uneconomical to pursue.”
Just five years ago the U.S. was planning for importing natural gas. But now it’s expected that the U.S. will become an exporter. Investments in Russia and Qatar have come up without markets for now. As the U.S. industry gathers experience, the estimates are sure to rise in the coming years. Today the independent estimates have over 90 years of supply on hand and as more reservoirs are discovered the reserves will climb.
Most of the gains come from ‘shale’ deposits. Stephen Holditch, professor of petroleum geology at Texas A&M University is being quoted that transferring the technology currently used in the United States would increase worldwide available gas reserves nine times. Based on the American experience, Holditch estimates total world shale reserves as being more than 16,000 trillion cubic feet (tcf). Annual gas consumption of the developed economies is currently around 50 tcf. 50 into 16,000 is 320 years. Holditch suggests there are reserves of some 500 tcf in Western Europe, 2,500 tcf in the Middle East and 3,500 tcf in China.
Case Item No. 2:
Naturally occurring methane hydrate may represent an enormous source of methane, the main component of natural gas, and should ultimately augment conventional natural gas supplies. The National Research Council has just released the prepublication pdfs (chapters are separate downloads) of their report on their site. With several commercial challenges before production, the technical challenges are now seen in the report as surmountable. Methane hydrates look practical, and while costly to start, the production costs can be expected to lower over time.
Methane hydrate is a frozen solution of water and methane. It’s been found from as far south as beyond the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to the equator to the Alaskan North Slope around the Arctic Ocean. The methane hydrates are expected to occur in the continental shelves across the planet and on shore at or near permafrost areas. Methane hydrate reserves aren’t ‘credible’ yet; the rules of assessment are still in debate. The known reserves are substantial and extrapolation yields huge numbers.
The key pages of the National Academy’s Methane Report start at page 18 and run to page 48 with 6 pages of references. Like all academic reports, the materials and sources are likely dated, but one can fairly project that the research in industry isn’t so far advanced as often seen in other fields. This is in part because the industry has carefully avoided methane hydrate and the methane hydrates are found in a vast array of structures. The water is frozen and can be supportive of the surface. The methane distribution appears in at least two forms, one where free gas enters and inhabits a reservoir and second where hydrates are formed from gas dissolved into the water. The State of the Science section is fascinating science reporting, well worth the download and the few minutes for reading. The scientific papers noted in the report lack web links as the only inconvenience.
Methane as Located in the Methane Hydrate. Click image for more info.
So far there are three methods in research for extraction plus the novel ideas. They are depressurization, thermal or warming, chemical and the novel. Novel ideas are already in patenting proceedings across the world.
Case Item No. 3:
Just to ‘throw a little methane on the fire” if you will, Monday saw Dr. John Dunbar, associate professor of geology at Baylor, and his team receive additional U.S. Department of Energy grants funds to continue their successful research of a new methane hydrate search method that they’ve adapted for use on the seafloor to find a potentially massive sources of methane hydrate. The team used an electrical resistivity method to acquire geophysical data at a site located roughly 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The researchers were able to provide a detailed map of where the methane hydrate is located and how deep it extends underneath the seafloor.
Located in an area called the Mississippi Canyon, the site is about 3,000-feet-wide, 3,000-feet under water, and has both active and dormant gas vents. Scientists have been researching the site since 2001, but have not been able to ascertain where the hydrate is located nor how much is there until now.
Professor Dunbar said, “The conventional search methods have been fairly effective in certain situations, but the resistivity method is a totally different approach. The benefit to the resistivity method is it shows the near-bottom in greater detail, and that is where the methane hydrate is located in this case. This research shows the resistivity method works and is effective.”
While the measurement of resistivity has been used for some time, the method has seldom been used at deep depths. The new application method showed researchers that the methane hydrate was located only in limited spots, usually occurring along faults under the sea floor. Dunbar said the method also showed the methane hydrate is not as abundant as previously thought at the Mississippi Canyon site.
Dunbar and his team dragged a “sled” – a device with a nearly one-kilometer-long towed array – back and forth over the site, injecting the electrical current. Sediment containing methane hydrate within its pores showed higher resistivity, compared to sediment containing salt water. While the measurement of resistivity has been used for some time, the method has seldom been used at deep depths. With the new funds Dunbar and his team will reconfigure the towed array and shorten the length of it to about 1,500 feet. They also will cluster sensors around certain areas on the array, which will give researchers a clearer picture of how deep the methane hydrate extends and will allow them to create a three-dimensional picture of the underwater site.
U.S Geological Survey estimates of methane hydrate is now at 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. At just 1% recoverable, that more than doubles the U.S. natural gas reserve. Extrapolated worldwide would have a far larger effect.
Just three items make a substantial case. The CH4 methane molecule is abundant and can also be made biologically and chemically. It’s a great way to use hydrogen rich carbon from fuels cells to heavy equipment.
Feb
5
The Battery Explosion Is Coming, Part Two
February 5, 2010 | 1 Comment
The cover story at Nikkei Electronics Asia titled ‘Winning in the Gigantic New EV Market’ examines over 16 web pages the positioning of industry in lithium ion battery production. Its a long piece so I’ll condense it down, but by all means if you’re interested in a world view seen from the Japanese point of view, with still much more than half the world’s market share, the full story is very worthwhile.
Part two begins with new materials that can boost capacity. The Japanese to their credit are already finalizing plans for large capacity lithium ion batteries. The plans are going a pace even though the Japanese are not satisfied with performance. World wide competition beware, all the factory and investment is getting answered with lower cost capacity with such confidence that plans are going ahead even as designs are racing to catch up. As we saw yesterday, it’s a market on a steep growth line, a major market answer is going to be capacity.
At the same time many of the automakers realize that lithium ion is still not good enough for long distance EV use. More energy density, power density, cost and safety improvements are going to be needed. Current technology simply occupies too much volume and expense for automaker’s comfort. The Japanese answer is new materials for the cathode, anode and the electrolytic solution.
Around the world research is focused on the post lithium ion technology with solid-state batteries, Li-metal batteries, Li-S batteries or Li-air batteries, as the current examples, all with commercial roll-out planned before 2030.
Current batteries composed as cathode and anode materials, electrolyte, separators, and other parts, and their characteristics as batteries must be carefully balanced. Sometimes a choice of a high-performance cathode material and combining it with a high-performance anode material does not result in a high-performance battery. For example the electrode materials and the electrolyte may not work well with each other, or it may simply be difficult to get commercial scale with the technology for the new materials.
Lithium Ion Battery New Material Flow Chart. Click image for more info.
The covers story says, “There is not a very wide range of commercial choice for cathode and anode material, electrolyte, etc., for use in consumer electronics. That’s exactly why the development of a new and promising combination of materials could represent enormous business opportunity.”
Development will likely be guided by three key factors, higher energy density, better safety and lower materials costs. The ‘devil’ is in the cathode.
The Japanese believe that there aren’t any new materials for cathodes unless sulfur, air or something undiscovered turns up. That list poses a range of unresolved problems needing time to work out. The short-term answer is to build more voltage into the cathode for more output.
On the anode side alternatives to graphite exist but expand and contract too much in the charge discharge cycle forcing physical breakdown and a short lifespan. The key research effort is to match the cathode higher voltage potential for more capacity and safer battery. The electrolytes will also have to improve; higher voltage will require better heat resistance.
Lithium ion is currently stuck at 3 volts. Research has identified cathodes that can get to 5 volts, a major improvement. Energy density is the product of specific capacitance and voltage, so a higher voltage means more battery capacity.
The olivine materials are interesting with elements P and O tightly bonded, and oxygen is not released even at high temperature so tempering the ‘thermal runaways’ and making batteries safer. The U.S. A123 Systems, Inc., the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others have found a way to make practical Li-ion rechargeable batteries for use in high-output applications by using smaller LiFePO4 particles and sheathing them in carbon. The fine particles with carbon sheathing make possible use of the material, formerly suffering from low electrical conductivity in the cathode.
Lithium Ion Cathode Carbon Sheaths. Click image for more info.
Wholly solid materials are gathering development momentum. One is a 5V cathode layered material, a layered and spinel anode material, and a solid solution material of Li2MnO3-LiMO2. Layered designs might surpass a theoretical ceiling of 275 mAh per gram. Research is also pointing to fluoride phosphate olivine (Li2MPO4F), silicate (Li2MSiO4) and other materials offering high specific capacitances exceeding 300mAh/g, better than a 50%increase from today’s on sale technology.
At the anode Si (silicon) has a theoretical capacity ten times that of graphite with a dreadful corresponding change in volume of 400%, larger physical size requirements and a very short cycle lifespan, but that 10-fold increase is a serious invitation for research. Ideas are in trial with Si materials expected in battery anodes in a year or two.
The single battery safety risk in a cell phone is much lower than a tightly packed set in a notebook PC or vehicle. Thus safety is a much higher priority for pack service. The graphite role is significant. Japan’s Toshiba Corp. has developed a new material attracting attention in the industry: lithium titanium oxide, or LTO (Li4Ti5O12). Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. is developing an anode material with a theoretical volumetric capacitance double that of LTO, with an electrical potential on a par with that of lithium.
The Sanyo prototype coin-type battery made with a LiCoO2 cathode and a MoO2 anode achieved a capacity of 2.9mAh, 1.3 times the level of the same design with an LTO anode. Both paths offer significant improvements.
The other candidates, air, solid state and metal are heavily funded with considerable management power. IBM has organized a lithium air research effort. Toyota is going basic with fundamental themes such as interface reactions between particles, and between electrodes and electrolytes, with the goal of developing new Li-ion rechargeable battery materials, all solid-state batteries, Li-air batteries, and more. By last December 1st Toyota presented nine papers on basic research at the 50th Battery Symposium in Japan.
Toyota appears to be especially interested in all solid-state batteries. An ideal all solid-state battery, says theory, would achieve a Li diffusion speed higher than that possible with a liquid electrolyte, making higher output possible. It would also be safer than organic electrolytes, which combust at high temperatures, and because there is no contained liquid, it seems likely that the exterior casing could be simplified. But reaction products form at the interface between the solid electrolyte and the electrode, degrading battery performance. It’s a major problem covered in detail in the Nikkei cover story. But Toyota is undeterred.
Air batteries have been around a while, going briefly commercial in the 1980s. Self-ignition removed them from the market. It’s known now that dendrites formed on the anode, puncturing the separator causing shorts that sparked and ignited the batteries. Two paths are in mind for researchers, solid electrolytes would eliminate the possibility of internal shorts. Research is expected to solve the problem. Preventing them from forming is more attractive and research is underway. The prevention path is further behind, while offering more promise.
All of these points are addressed in greater detail at the Nikkei Electronics cover story site. It’s a worthwhile read, the translation is pretty good, and I puzzled less than on some topics trying to figure out what was really meant.
Lithium, a light happily reactive metal has a future in energy storage. The drive to lower prices, market share, and quality improvements come from human nature. The spark of $150 oil has repercussions.
On the other hand . . . We haven’t heard from EEStor in a while. When we do, we might find that the lithium ion business will answer with even more research, faster adoption of new technology and raw animal competition. Electron storage is changing fast and it’s going to get cheaper faster than anyone thought.
Feb
4
The Battery Explosion Is Coming, Part One
February 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The cover story at Nikkei Electronics Asia titled ‘Winning in the Gigantic New EV Market’ examines over 16 web pages the positioning of industry in lithium ion battery production. Its a long piece so I’ll condense it down, but by all means if you’re interested in a world view seen from the Japanese point of view, with still much more than half the world’s market share, the full story is very worthwhile. The story opens with “Ninety times larger in five years” an explosion in building factories for lithium ion batteries that will circle the world. It’s a very big story and writers Kouji Kariatsumari, Hideyoshi Kume, Hiroki Yomogita, and Phil Keys have done a great job is getting a mass of data worked into presentable material.
The covers story opens with a look at the Nissan Leaf EFV model; the projected production of only 200,000 will demand 4800 MWh in the second year. In comparison the 2009 world total cell phone battery demand was 3000 MWh. And Nissan isn’t the only maker. Honda in a joint venture with Yuasa hopes to boost their hybrid car sales by 50% by 2020. As the Nikkei puts it from a quote “Production can’t keep up.”
The cells now aren’t so much different, the coming years will see large size, large capacity cells.
New investment is flooding into battery production from established firms, firms that build other battery types and new entrants. The Japanese firms Sony, Sanyo and Panasonic alone are committed to $3.3 billion by 2015. Korea’s LG and Samsung are committing another $1.5 billion with Samsung also partnering with Europe’s Bosch for $600 million more. Even Japan’s Mitsubishi has started a building a $111 million pilot plant opening in the fall of 2010 with 66 MWh capacity – from a pilot plant.
The US firm A123 has agreed with Japan’s IHI to help supply Japanese needs. Dow Chemical has a joint venture with Korea’s Kokam Engineering funded to another $600 million.
The lithium ion battery market is shifting from small electronic devices to electric vehicles. Fuji Keizai researchers think the revenue for 2009 was $9.3 billion with only an added $276 million going to EVs. By 2012 the EV market is expected to grow to $17.5 billion, and $25 billion in 2014.
Lithium Ion Market Projections. Click image for more info.
The cover story illustrates the demand this way. A cell phone needs 2 to 3 Wh of capacity – 1 battery. A notebook PC 70 Wh or 8.8 batteries, a hybrid car 1 kWh or 125 batteries and a full EV 20 kWh some 2500 batteries. This shows the need for larger capacity designs. Here is where the numbers get big. New cell phones in 2009 sold at about 1.1 billion handsets – about 3000 MWh for the year. Add notebooks and other gear the number grows to between 10,000 and 15,000 MWh. That puts the equivalent EV number between 500,000 to 700,000 units. Keep in mind the world makes 70 million cars annually – less than 0.1% EV penetration and the lithium battery market doubles.
If the large capacity market grows prices could fall dramatically. At over $2,200 per kWh now, the price can fall by half and another half, to $553 by 2015 when production gets fully underway. The trigger could be rail, industrial equipment and more ideas.
The trigger may have already let loose. Hitachi has taken an order for $11 billion worth of diesel hybrid rail drive units with lithium ion storage batteries going to the UK. Add buses, forklifts, guided vehicles, port cranes, construction equipment, residential solar storage, large scale solar and wind power – then the numbers sky rocket – all based on falling lithium ion battery prices. The cranes and forklifts are already on sale and economically viable. The cover story asserts this amount of scale could push pricing to $330 per kWh.
The vehicle market isn’t about just cars. Light duty trucks, delivery vehicles and bicycles use batteries too. China built and sold 20 million electrified bikes in 2009.
China, and its rapidly increasing wealth is driving the market in its own way. Some in the battery industry have concerns. China is headed for the lowest cost producer with compromises in design from the latest, most efficient, safer and simpler designs. A lithium ion battery’s most expensive part is the cathode (between 30 and 35%) and Chinese manufactures have elected to go to old technology for now although the changes coming are going to be somewhat safer and be even much less expensive single element designs that cost a tenth as much as the best materials.
Lithium Ion Battery Component Cost Shares. Click image for more info.
At the low cost end of the business, working with the latest manufacturing equipment made in Japan, China’s BYD should get to 4000 MWh of production in 2012.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration policy is for everything to be made domestically, with money available. Korea’s LG, France’s Saft Groupe and Japan’s Toda Kogyo’s US subsidiaries have cash already in hand. Nissan plans to use another government program to build a full battery factory. The political angle in the U.S. goes further with a comprehensive cooperative agreement with China in energy including the already started promotion of EVs, renewable energy and others.
The ‘others’ include joint standards and demonstration projects and developing smart grid strategies for power distribution.
This part of the review lets a little of the apprehension that subtlety runs in the Nikkei covers story. The insular attitude and concern about the U.S. entering the business with capital for competitors is good cause. But a solid reputation, leading research, enough capital and personal connections already in place will serve the Japanese industry well.
The lithium ion battery business is in the early boom. From miners and the equipment they use, to the consumers of cars, cell phones and laptops the signal is clear – there is going to be a great variation in quality. Losing the Japanese leadership is going to force consumers to get sophistication and knowledge before committing to a large battery pack. Keep in mind, there are plans for used vehicle batteries going to mass storage for use before recycling. You wouldn’t want to miss the high trade value from a quality battery pack for choosing a cheap entry price.
Part two – tomorrow.
Feb
3
192 Lasers Focused On a Dot
February 3, 2010 | 1 Comment
192 laser beams will focus on a target the size of a pencil eraser to trigger a self-sustaining fusion reaction. It seems likely that the planned combined shots at fusible fuel will take place in the second half of 2010. It means more apprehension for the ITER supporters, and a lot of hope for the independent groups.
The plan is a peaking of effort at Lawrence Livermore National Labs National Ignition Facility from decades of gathering experience. The trigger for the news is indirect-drive hohlraum (the tiny cylindrical target which contains an even tinier spherical fuel sphere filled with deuterium and tritium the two isotopes of hydrogen) experiments at the National Ignition Facility have demonstrated symmetric capsule implosions at unprecedented laser drive energies of 0.7 Mega Joules.
National Ignition Facility Instrumentation 'Dante' Click image for more info.
That is they’ve hit the target well enough that it implodes instead of whizzing off somewhere, using more energy than past attempts and figured out how to use the laser concentration complications to their advantage. These experiments are another form of the now familiar term – inertial confinement fusion (ICF).
The one hundred and ninety-two simultaneously fired laser beams heat “ignition emulate hohlraums” to radiation temperatures of 3.3 million degrees Kelvin, compressing 1.8-mm capsules by the soft x-rays produced by the photon struck hohlraum. The very quick compression of the fuel capsule forces the hydrogen nuclei to combine, or fuse, releasing many times more energy than the laser energy that was required to spark the reaction.
The problem for decades has been because of the tendency of the laser beams to scatter and dissipate their energy. The last reported series of test shots using helium and hydrogen filled targets last fall, NIF researchers were able to use laser-plasma interactions, or LPI, (those complications mentioned earlier) effects to their advantage and to adjust the energy distribution of NIF’s laser beams.
ICF Program Director Brian MacGowan explains, “Laser-plasma interactions are an instability, and in many cases they can surprise you. However, we showed in the experiments that we could use laser-plasma interactions to transfer energy and actually control symmetry in the hohlraum. Overall, we didn’t find any pathological problem with laser-plasma interactions that would prevent us generating a hohlraum suitable for ignition.”
Siegfried Glenzer, NIF plasma physics group leader takes the explanation further. Using LPI effects to tune ICF laser energy is “a very elegant way to do it. You can change the laser wavelengths and get the power where it’s needed without increasing the power of individual beams. This way you can make maximum use of all the available laser beam energy.” That cylinder holding the fuel is understood to be very important now.
National Ignition Faciltiy Hohlraum Activity Graphic. Click image for more info.
In a Science Express article, Glenzer, MacGowan and their NIF colleagues report “self-generated plasma-optics gratings on either end of the hohlraum tune the laser power distribution in the hohlraum, producing symmetric X-ray drive.” Glenzer said the gratings act like tiny prisms, redirecting the energy of some of the laser beams just as a prism splits and redirects sunlight according to its wavelength.
Glenzer attributes the newly understood LPI phenomenon to the size of the test hohlraums that are somewhat smaller than actual NIF ignition targets. They’re two to three times larger than hohlraums used in previous ICF experiments at other laser facilities. He said the increased amount of the high-temperature, low-density plasma in the areas where the laser beams enter the hohlraum was responsible for the spontaneous generation of the plasma gratings.
The second aspect is the technique of slightly shifting the wavelength of some laser beams to control the transfer of energy between the beams and equalize the laser power distribution in the hohlraum. This is a result of predictions modeled by NIF scientists using high-fidelity three-dimensional simulations. In last fall’s experiments, an initially asymmetric target (the cylinder) implosion into a “pancake” shape was changed to a spherical shape by the wavelength-shifting technique, validating the modeling results.
Glenzer explains further, by taking advantage of the LPI effects in the target, as the beams crossed at the entrance of the hohlraums, the scientists could make use of minute wavelength adjustments, ranging from a fraction of an angstrom to a few angstroms (an angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter, about the size of an atom). With the LPI scheme Glenzer says, “you can run every beam at maximum power and have another distribution mechanism to achieve symmetry.” Sounds rather elegant now,
What is happening from the old idea of trying to get photons to compress and heat a fuel, the container is bombarded with photons such that it emits X-rays to compress and heat the fuel.
Jeff Atherton, director of NIF experiments says, “We feel we will be able to create the necessary hohlraum conditions to drive an implosion to ignition.” That notion is from extrapolating the results of the earlier experiments to higher-energy shots on full-sized hohlraums.
The National Ignition Facility’s next step is to move to ignition-like fuel capsules that require the fuel to be in a frozen hydrogen layer (at 425 degrees Fahrenheit below zero) inside the fuel capsule. The NIF is currently being made ready to begin experiments with ignition-like fuel capsules in the summer of 2010.
The level of sophistication, the decades of effort and billions of dollars sunk into laser driven fusion may finally pay off. But there are gaping holes in the news and background like how much power is going in, what would be needed to achieve net power and the costs involved to replicate such a device compared to what one might have available to send to the grid.
Laser driven fusion is still a very long way off. If it works this year and there’s net output, the capital investment issues are going to be considered. Success may well accomplish one worthwhile thing, provide an alternative place than ITER for dispensing taxpayer’s money. The NIF isn’t talking up a lot of radioactive equipment, or short life spans. Laser Inertial Confinement Fusion is growing. One can fairly expect one or more of these paths will pay off, making capital investment the prime consideration for development.
Feb
2
Making Sense from Nonsense
February 2, 2010 | 4 Comments
I have come to admire Robert Rapier; just last week we had a look at one of the best pieces he’s presented. As if there is some signal a good turn deserves a bad one, Mr. Rapier came up with a post that is nonsense.
The article, called the “Price of Energy,” picked up by the ready oblidgers at the Oil Drum, and even at the estimable Forbes website, is senseless propaganda. The point – I assume and hope Mr. Rapier meant to make – is that raw sources have a wide range of prices, to no particular surprise. But as an engineer, Rapier should know better, and those of you out there with some know-how might sense a little pandering to ignorance and prejudice – and likely a lot of political economic posturing. Ah, nonsense.
The list that follows will furrow a brow, its mostly fuels, priced pretty close to the raw source, but getting it to where its used, how its used and what the work production is, are points simply missing. It’s the “simpleton’s way to persuade,” and it sucked in so very many, even the capitalists at Forbes. As you check it over, note that Rapier includes electricity, which is energy not a fuel, and an incentive “price” for ethanol. Here goes, then we’ll straighten it out some.
Energy Prices per Million BTU
- Coal – Powder River Basin1 – $0.56
- Coal – Northern Appalachia1 - $2.08
- Natural gas2 - $5.69
- Ethanol tax credit3 – $5.92
- Propane4 - $13.28
- Petroleum5 – $13.43
- #2 Heating oil4 - $14.74
- Jet fuel4 - $15.48
- Diesel4 - $15.59
- Wood pellets6 – $17.33
- Gasoline4 - $17.81
- Corn ethanol7 - $23.46
- Electricity8 - $26.31
- Cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs9 – $30.92
Here’re Rapier’s source notes:
Sources for Data
- U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Coal News and Markets Report for the Week Ending 1/15/2010. (Link).
- EIA, Natural Gas Futures Prices for 1/15/2010. (Link).
- U.S. Department of Energy, Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC). (Link).
- EIA, Spot Prices for 1/15/2010. (Link).
- EIA, World Crude Oil Prices, U.S. average price for 1/15/2010. (Link).
- WoodPelletPrice.com, typical premium wood pellet prices in New England for premium hardwood pellets on 1/15/2010. (Link).
- CME Group, Chicago Board of Trade Ethanol Futures for February 2010 Contract. (Link).
- EIA, Wholesale Day Ahead Prices at Selected Hubs for New England 12/31/09. (Link).
- POET, POET Announces Cost Reductions in Cellulosic Ethanol. (Link).
It’s a ferociously absurd perspective. Here’s why. Take that seemingly cheap coal, rail it across the country, feed it into a boiler making dry steam that blows through turbines turning generators, electricity goes out onto the grid, on through a charger that will refill a battery in a vehicle. Later someone will discharge the battery and use electricity to move some stuff. Solid evidence says that system will move units of mass, be it people or goods, at one quarter to one tenth the cost of gasoline or diesel. Something is way wrong with Rapier’s perspective – it’s the missing sunk investment in scale and commercial viability. You might note now that the sunken investment is dirt cheap compared to the fuel inputs and the carried interests of taxes and other rent seekers.
Moreover, spot-pricing markets isn’t how the rational world works. Next up is natural gas. Big buyers, utilities and power generators agree to long-term contracts for supplies. They might “sell or release” unused natural gas or need to make up short term short falls, or work out ways to secure those needs through the futures market, but the “market” is only a guide, it sets out the marginal or “last cubic foot” price, only a very small part of the total gas delivered runs through the markets.
The petroleum group, including propane, heating oil, jet, diesel, and gasoline are in a non-rational market. Here OPEC and the Axis of Oil countries dominate by managing the marginal last barrel close to demand to support a high price. There’s a lot of complaining across the whole fuel spectrum for natural gas being too cheap compared to oil, (furrowed brow: matching rational and non rational market prices for btu’s?) Then there’s the cheer brought to the alternative world with high marginal prices worked into the entire market structure.
What does make sense?
Ask the right questions. The first is choosing how to heat or cool a space or move you and/or your stuff. The sunken investments for all of today’s choices are in, you only choose the tool, with the risks of the fuels needed to determine the price of the energy to get the work done. You want a gasoline fueled 13-passenger limo or a two passenger electric vehicle; the choice is yours to make. You want a ground source heat pump or an oil burner boiler to heat your space; the choice is yours. The investment you sink matters, it’s the most important one of all – both to you and all those sunken investments supplying fuels and energy now and the investments to come.
The second question is realizing the entry point of new technology in the various energy systems. The tools you use, the entry point at the end, which convert the energy and fuels can be highly efficient or not – you choose. Current sunlight, the sources of fission, fusion and geothermal are available for economic investment, with lots of political interference that could greatly change the cost for using energy for the better. In most places there is some means to access alternative energy and get fuels, be it a solar panel, using ethanol, or geothermal, nuclear sources or some of the astonishing innovations seen on this site.
As noted in the coal to moving vehicle example, power from energy and fuels work in systems. Its not likely we’re going back to a system where everyone gathers wood for campfires to cook and stay warm overnight, except for recreation. Societies are going to sink more investment into sources of fuels and storage for energy, just whether or how they fit in – is a market choice. Risk takers are going to work on developing new ways to harness energy itself, invent new ways to make fuels, and innovate new storage methods so energy can be saved back for later.
You’ll decide, by buying the tools, investing your savings or choosing investments, and by participating in the political discourse. You have two systems – your dollars and you vote – make ‘em count and you’ll be making the sense that matters. Fortunes will be made, discoveries for now and the future will appear, new jobs and opportunities are coming, and the world will be a better, cleaner and richer place. And if you’re smart and well informed in using your common sense, BTUs won’t matter, the price to get the job done under the terms you choose – will.
Feb
1
A Bug to Make Bio Diesel In Just One Step
February 1, 2010 | 3 Comments
Using E. coli, a well-studied microorganism whose natural ability to synthesize fatty acids and exceptional willingness to be genetically modified, LS9 Inc., the University of California at Berkeley, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute have developed a microbe that can produce an advanced biofuel directly from cellulosic biomass in a one-step process.
The engineered E. coli is the first consolidated advanced biofuels production and cellulosic bioprocessing path. The breakthrough enables the production of advanced hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals in a single fermentation process that does not require additional chemical transformations.
E coli Secreting Bio Diesel LS9 Click image for more info.
This week LS9 will announce the planned location of a demonstration facility in the U.S. to convert sugar cane into biodiesel using an existing organism from previous work. Stephen del Cardayre, the vice president of research and development at the company said the plant, which will use an existing engineered microorganism, will open this summer and pave the way for large-scale manufacturing and sales in 2012.
The new E. coli is a step toward lowering the cost of making biodiesel from wood chips, corn stover, and other residual agricultural products. The added enzymes made from the new genetic modifications greatly expand the feedstock choices including the still rare switchgrass and miscanthus. These types of cellulosic feedstocks are typically much harder to convert into fuel through fermentation than sugar cane or corn, but offer the potential of more complete CO2 cycling through the atmosphere.
The researcher’s design imports genes that allow E. coli to secrete enzymes that break down the tough material that makes up the bulk of plants – cellulose, specifically hemicellulose – and produce the sugar needed to feed the process. Chemical engineer Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley says, “The organism can produce the fuel from a very inexpensive sugar supply, namely cellulosic biomass.”
Keasling explains then, “We incorporated genes that enabled production of biodiesel – esters [organic compounds] of fatty acids and ethanol – directly. The fuel that is produced by our E. coli can be used directly as biodiesel. In contrast, fats or oils from plants must be chemically esterified before they can be used.” This eliminates one process and it seems, no glycerin is produced.
The E. coli directly secretes the resulting biodiesel, which then floats to the top of a fermentation vat, so there is neither the necessity for distillation or other purification processes nor the need, as in biodiesel from algae as developed so far, to break the cell to get the oil out.
Keasling and his team cloned genes from Clostridium stercorarium and Bacteroides ovatus, bacteria species that live in soil and the guts of plant-eating animals that produce enzymes for breaking down the cellulose. The team then used the extra bits of genetic code in the form of short amino acid sequences that instruct the altered E. coli to secrete the bacterial enzyme out into the feedstock, which breaks down the plant cellulose, turning it into sugar; then the E. coli in turn transforms that sugar into biodiesel.
The E. coli bioprocess makes hydrocarbons with at least 12 carbon atoms, ranging from diesel, jet fuel, or kerosene to chemical precursors.
So far, so good.
Keasling points out the new E. coli are not the most efficient producer of biofuel, “We are at about 10 percent of the theoretical maximum yield from sugar. We would like to be at 80 to 90 percent to make this commercially viable. Furthermore, we would need a large-scale production process,” to allow mass production of microbial fuel.
LS9 isn’t alone at this either, Gevo and Keasling’s own founded Amyris Biotechnologies, are working on making fuel from microbes commercially viable.
Keasling explains the idea in this case is to produce a batch of biofuel from a single colony through E. coli’s natural ability to proliferate and, after producing the fuel, dispose of the E. coli and start anew with a fresh colony, “This minimizes the mutations that might arise if one continually subcultured the microbe.” The idea is also to engineer the new organism, deleting key metabolic pathways, such that it would never survive in the wild in order to prevent escapes with unintended environmental impacts, among other dangers.
The research results paper, which triggered all those news articles and blog posts, was published in the January 28 issue of Nature. The study paper gets to another part of the story that reveals the production includes fatty alcohols, and waxes. There’s worthwhile news – the “diesel” can be as much as better than nine times the produced fatty alcohols and waxes. The remaining question is what is left over, something of the fertilizer type, or a rich organic with the trace elements that can be returned to the soil?
LS9 Biodiesel From E coli Results. Click image for more information.
Even at just 10% of the carbohydrates available going to a product, the first path for a single step process seems to be in hand. 80 or 90% is a ways off. The competition may well find that a two-step process yields more net income. $75 oil makes a lot of possibilities viable.
If – and it’s a major question, the process can utilize crops from more marginal land and offer a residue worth returning to the soil instead of losing the major trace elements such as potassium and phosphorus, growing fuels in the higher carbon molecules could really change the function of fuel markets and agriculture.
Jan
29
How To Measure Some Energy Judgments
January 29, 2010 | 3 Comments
Robert Rapier, bless ‘em, attracted Frank Weigert a retired DuPont chemist to express his views on the pathway to renewable fuels. Odd, Mr. Rapier is quite the one to skewer the biofuel field generally, relying on his considerable practical knowledge without investigating the paths research can use in getting to new developments. Mr. Weigert had sent Mr. Rapier an email describing his views on a pathway that could lead us away from our dependence on petroleum. Rapier in turn asked if the material could be turned into an essay for others to read.
For our purposes Mr. Weigert offers biofuel definitions. The narrative is exactly on point and done such that it can be used to assist people in understanding what’s going on. Its educational grade, I quote with some edits:
The differences in chemical nomenclature and more conventional terms all too often confuse non-chemists. Oil as an ingredient in salad dressing is not the same oil as a synonym for petroleum.
Green plants make nucleic acids, proteins, hydrocarbons, carbohydrates, and lipids. Only the latter three need concern us as fuel precursors. Hydrocarbons have only carbon and hydrogen in their structure. (Other) Examples include natural rubber and other materials made from isoprene oligomerization.
Carbohydrates have formulas around (CH2O) n: Carbo (C) – hydrates (H2O). Glucose, C6H1206, is a monomer. Sucrose is made from glucose and another sugar fructose with the loss of one water molecule. Both sugars are soluble in water. Polysaccharides such as starch and cellulose are insoluble in water. Yeasts ferment soluble sugars to ethanol, an alcohol. The technology to ferment (some) insoluble carbohydrate polymers practically (at commercial scale) does not yet exist.
Lipids are esters of the alcohol glycerin and long-chain fatty acids. Transesterification with short chain alcohols such as methanol or ethanol converts these lipids to glycerine and esters generically known as biodiesel. Biodiesel is not a hydrocarbon (its still a carbohydrate).
Hydrocarbon (formation) reactions are generally many orders of magnitude faster than the reactions of polar molecules such as those involving alcohols or esters. That means that the equipment required to reform hydrocarbons is much smaller than that required to ferment carbohydrates to ethanol or transesterify lipids to biodiesel. Hydrocarbon chemistry does not require a solvent. Fermentation must be carried out in water, and yeast generally can only produce an ethanol concentration of 10% or so. The ethanol must then be separated from a large excess of water. Transesterification to make biodiesel is an equilibrium process that will not go to completion without a large excess of the small chain alcohol. That means large equipment for separation and recycling. While a hundred or so refineries provide all the transportation fuel America uses, many thousand fermentation or biodiesel facilities would be needed to produce the same amount of fuel.
Mr. Weigert concludes that investments to obtain a carbohydrate economy like methanol and ethanol are going to be quite high, then asking why bother when using hydrocarbons like gasoline and diesel when both can be produced from biological materials?
Before answering lets give Weigert and Rapier credit, Weigert educates simply and accurately about the chemistry basics. Thank you to both of them.
The question’s first answer is in a whole different field – economics, meaning markets and the consumers that determine the course. Everyone, no matter where geographically or where on the current consumption scale, want more energy powered assistance for raising their standard of living. The job here, and hopefully in business and government is to drive the cost of energy and fuel lower and the tools that use energy and fuel to higher efficiency. Driving a distance in whatever style is chosen isn’t decided by the fuel or energy choices alone.
Weigert says, “Consumers should not have to change anything.” Well, not compulsorily, price and feature incentives are better tools. But change is inevitable, it’s the policies that governments form and the reactions in business that create prices and incentives – a fact lost on the U.S. government for now. Business is just as guilty in the failure; lobby work is mostly about maximizing the status quo, blanking developments, and bleeding out advantages from the whole economy. Throw in the regulatory battles and gridlock is quite understandable.
That might be the best consumers can expect, but it does produce a distorted economic landscape. People will fill that landscape however its formed with the things they want. Maybe the U.S. ethanol industry has excess advantages, but the drive to light molecule fuel cells using things from the hydrocarbon methane to the alcohols methanol and ethanol offer prodigious amounts of energy stored as fuel that when compared to fossil oil products can be quite advantageous. At fuel cell efficiencies with some buffer storage in batteries or capacitors, the combustion path has an effective competitor offering features and prices for consumers to measure.
The question’s second answer is that hydrocarbon formation from biomass is a field with several contenders. Pyrolysis, the oldest, might lead the field but others have great potential as well. The business may find that extracting the sugars and then engaging into a hydrocarbon formation process yields the maximum amount of commercial products at the lowest cost. The field also is faced with the costs to form hydrocarbons to the desired molecules needed in the market. It’s just not simple, and the market for products using fuels is going to go for efficiency and the larger hydrocarbons as jet and diesel, so far at least, are destined for combustion to convert the stored energy into work. That is getting to be a disadvantage in the largest markets. The combustion market will exist; flight, heavy equipment and other markets may well choose the pure hydrocarbon path. Most machines as tested by the airlines and military get along fine with biofuel carbohydrates, biofuel hydrocarbons, petroleum hydrocarbons and appropriate blended combinations. Biofuel hydrocarbon production plants are going to be needed in the thousands as well.
Humanity’s principle challenge is to preserve and improve itself. History is replete with attempts to do such things with power at the pinnacle forcing it down to the masses. It is clear to anyone curious enough to look – that method can get people killed by the millions. What does work is for the masses to have the maximum choices available and let the intelligence of the billions do its magic.
Keep an eye on the energy and fuel landscape. There are choices with prices and features that are going to change and get much, much better in the coming years. Mr. Weigert offers a useful lesson, but the important lesson is what you find from making your own choices.
Jan
28
An Ethanol Engine For Maximum Output
January 28, 2010 | 2 Comments
Not since the Ford Model T has a U.S. engine manufacturer produced a market oriented ethanol fuel engine. Or more accurately, one optimized for ethanol. The engineering firm Ricardo and supporter Growth Energy who promotes ethanol have built and lab tested an ethanol engine that uses ethanol for maximum output. That means compression, lots of it, and the corresponding fuel economy and power.
Ethanol’s fuel density is lower than gasoline, when mixed to the E85 standard as much as 30% of the fuel mileage economy can get away. But ethanol is much higher octane and a higher heat vaporization which when exploited flips the disadvantage to an advantage. What’s that mean?
Ricardo’s lab results point to an engine half the displacement. Or as Ricardo chose, downsize most of that and still leave a up to a 30% fuel economy advantage. The swap is a GM based 6-liter gasoline V-8 of one test mule with the heavily boosted 3.2-liter EBDI engine – resulting in up to a 16.8% fuel economy improvement and a 6.6-liter turbo diesel V-8 for a second on road demonstration vehicle. The test mules are GM Sierra 3500 HD pickups. Ford’s Super Duty might get a real answer someday.
In the heavy duty pickup market engine torque is a key performance metric. Ricardo expects their engine to offer more than 1.5x the torque of the gasoline engine and match the torque of the 6.6L turbo diesel engine while weighing 400 to 500 pounds less than the diesel. That’s a lot to grasp when adding in the near 17% fuel economy gain.
Ricardos Ethanol Engine. Click image for the largest view.
Ricardo’s technology is called Ethanol Boosted Direct Injection (EBDI). The EBDI engine can accommodate ethanol blends ranging from 0 to 85% ethanol (E0 to E85). Ricardo is still collecting lab data, but with an E40 (40% ethanol / 60% gasoline) Ricardo can achieve a mpg that approaches the pure gasoline fuel using a fuel with less energy per gallon and a considerable price advantage. The E40 blend uses approximately 10% less BTUs per mile (6,590 vs 7,260) than gasoline. So, using E40 would be about equal in a gasoline comparison. Ricardo believes the future may hold a significant advantage in pricing where ethanol is much cheaper. That is dubious, corn follows oil in near lockstep. BTUs are BTUs. But availability – ethanol could have a huge advantage in tight circumstances. A must be fueled and go situation might demand the EBDI technology for some operators.
How does Ricardo get that compression advantage? Luke Cruff, Ricardo’s Chief Engineer in the Gasoline Product Group said, “Compression ratio is a function of two things: geometric compression ratio and boosting pressure. The turbochargers and other variable devices can adjust the boosting pressure, which allows you to have different effective compression ratios. Diesel engines today run about 17:1 compression ratio which is trending down because the emission regulations while this engine’s compression ratio is closer to 11 to 1.” Note, he’s not saying what the peak compression is.
Rod Beazly said, “We took the stock V-6 and redesigned every component. We are getting diesel-like performance out of an engine that was originally designed to be lightly turbocharged. With our heavy boost we have increased the cylinder pressures to diesel-like levels. We had to work on the bottom end and on the crank and in order to get enough of the ethanol into the engine we had to use two fuel pumps. We have an integrated manifold with charge air coolers and EGR coolers help cool down the combustion system. We have two parallel/sequential turbochargers and although our block and heads look unchanged from the outside, inside they are highly modified with structural changes to support the higher cylinder pressures. We also have a high-voltage ignition system to ignite the large amounts of ethanol.”
As you’re suspecting now, EBDI isn’t a cheap option. In volume production, the engine is expected to retail for $4,000 to $4,500 more than the base gasoline engine or approximately half the premium associated with a diesel engine. The diesel premium is expected to grow to $9,500 by 2013 in order to comply with more stringent air pollution standards. The flip side is fuel economy savings would offset the EBDI’s price premium versus today’s gasoline or deisel engine over the life of the vehicle—allowing the owner to get the increased torque performance “for free”.
A look over the chart shows how the fuel mix can be managed to exploit the EBDI advantage. At low load high efficiency, gasoline at 60% and ethanol at 40% just uses the 11:1 built in compression advantage for a $0.29 per mile saving. While in a high torque situation at 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol the advantage is power output with 284 extra pound feet of torque and still saving $0.04 per mile.
Ricardo's Fuel Comparison Chart. Click image for the largest view.
Fuel mix? There’s a problem. Ethanol pumps are all E85 now, so far no pumps are out there for choosing your own mix. But even at an E85 mix alone, the advantage is there. There’re a whole lot of delivery companies with vehicles in this engine range with their own tanks and storage that can switch. And it would pay over time.
It looks like the major technology is in the turbochargers. Getting to mechanical 11:1 compression isn’t so hard and the know-how to hold together 17:1 and higher is common. Ricardo seems to have Honeywell building what one must hope is a fast acting variable turbo that will stay together under hard use for 150K miles or better.
Ethanol also offers better emissions. The other companies, Ford and Dodge can’t let this challenge go unanswered. The future looks good for ethanol, naysayers being caught in the ignorance loop – “GM has just recently introduced a 1.4 L turbocharged engine for the Chevy Cruze. We believe that using EBDI technology, you could have a 1.4 L engine power a mid-size car. That would give you approximately the same engine displacement to vehicle weight ratio as the 3.2 L engine in the heavy-duty truck,” says Ricardo. High performance isn’t going away anytime soon.
Jan
27
A Jet Turbine Engine for Your Hybrid Vehicle
January 27, 2010 | 3 Comments
A jet engine for a hybrid vehicle generator set seems at first a little extreme. But is it? The scale for jet turbines for outside observers is the huge engine hanging from the wings of airliners. That’s a little deceptive, as those jet’s turbine engines are much smaller than what’s visible. The power turbine inside is turning the big slave turbine that is so visible. The slave turbine is really a very high-speed propeller. The mass of pulled and forced air bypasses the smaller power turbine inside.
Inside is a much smaller turbine engine. These engines have seen immense improvements since the early days when the easy to recognize torpedo shape was common. Those engines worked by exhausting a hot high-speed gas flow. But a lot of energy is wasted in heat. Much energy could be recovered by mechanically connecting to the rotating shaft.
Even so, jet turbines we recognize are big. From natural gas turbines powering utility size generation sets to ship-sized turbines these are massive power engines. But little ones have been built. Some of you can remember the Chrysler automotive turbine model in the 1960s. Small turbines have come a very long way since.
A consortium led by the UK’s micro gas turbine company Bladon Jets with Jaguar Land Rover and leading electrical machine company SR Drives, has secured investment from the UK’s Technology Strategy Board to develop an Ultra Lightweight Range Extender (ULRE) for next-generation electric vehicles. That’s Brit speak for a hybrid vehicle generator set. The allure is – turbines are very tolerant about the fuel they can use.
The consortium’s objective is to produce the world’s first commercially viable – and environmentally friendly – gas-turbine generator specifically for automotive applications. Their ULRE will incorporate the Bladon Jets’ patented axial-flow gas turbine engine coupled to a high-speed generator using SR Drives’ proprietary switched-reluctance technology. Engineers at Jaguar Land Rover will oversee the design of the ULRE’s packaging and integration into vehicles.
Bladon Jets Small Turbine. Click image for the largest view.
The advantages in Bladon’s claim for small external combustion gas turbine engines are they’re more efficient, less polluting and lower cost than internal combustion reciprocating engines. Add to that gas turbine engines will run on just about any type of fuel including natural gas and bio-fuels. Turbines are not dependent on specific fuels, external combustion allows a wide range for fuel choice. Rigged for liquid fuel, a turbine could use ethanol up to heavy diesel. It’s fuel accessibility risk reducer as well.
Axial Jet Engine Flow
Bladon’s specific choice in turbines is to use axial flow instead of radial flow. An axial flow turbine uses more fans to compress close to the axial shaft. That allows very high compression. A radial flow uses less fan compression with the compression increase coming from a squeeze between the extended shaft body and the outer wall. Radial flow is much less costly to build, but axial flow is much more efficient.
Radial Jet Engine Flow
Bladon may have answered some of the radial build advantage with a new process to manufacture the blades and hubs. Bladon is doing a full bladed hub and blades in one piece. That allows the machining to be quite precise and the singular casting is stress free at lower mass. No more assembled blades to the hubs. Plus engineering adaptations are easily accommodated in manufacturing. The surprise is Bladon is now at 75mm (just under 3 inch) rotor diameter. Now one can see the hybrid vehicle potential.
Bladon Jets 75mm Compressor Rotor
Turbine engines while expensive, might finally be cost comparable to internal combustion. The turbine won’t need the water-cooling system components, or catalytic converters and much of the emission equipment. The fuel system will be simpler; the total number of parts will be greatly reduced as well as the total weight. They warm up in just seconds saving cold start inefficiency.
The Bladon route to hybrid vehicle generation sets might just work if the costs can be driven low enough. Turbines are high-speed precision engines. Fed clean air they should last a very long time with very little attention. Keep in mind, compared to sophisticated piston engines the 5% effect applies to size, weight, part count and power output. An effective turbine HEV generator set isn’t going to be very big or heavy.
It’s all about cost. The materials are not cheap, but what power and rotational speed requirements would be needed isn’t discussed yet. Bladon has a patented technology to reduce manufacturing costs and claims they can address material from the lower cost to the most expensive. One just has to assume, the Bladon team must have the numbers to make the effort, and if they do, series hybrid designs with turbine generator sets might just really take off.
It’s very encouraging. The ability to catch an emergency fill from the cooking oil in the kitchen, or a simple kerosene fill up or ethanol or whatever might be cheapest is an alluring feature that should support the Bladon effort for quite some time.
Jan
26
MIT and Columbia May Have a New Fusion Path
January 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
LDX Diagram. Click image for the largest view.
Used in a new experiment that reproduces the magnetic fields of planetary bodies has yielded its first significant results. The results confirmed the theory that LDX’s unique approach has some potential to be developed into a new way of building a power-production plant based on nuclear fusion mimicking the process that generates the sun’s prodigious output of energy.
The theorizing began with observations in the way plasmas in space interact with the Earth and Jupiter magnetic fields. The effect hasn’t before been achieved in a laboratory. The experiment confirms the seeming counter-intuitive prediction that inside the device’s magnetic chamber, random turbulence causes the plasma to become more densely concentrated – crucial step to getting atoms to fuse together – instead of becoming more spread out, as usually happens during turbulence. MIT is using the term “pinch effect” to describe the observation, a term we’ve heard before from other fusion developers.
MIT is touting LDX as a new approach. MIT senior scientist Jay Kesner, MIT’s physics research group leader for LDX says, “It’s the first experiment of its kind.” That is certainly so, but if the pinch effect is a functioning phenomena, MIT is late to the game following other pinch phenomena. Yet every pathway to a fusion pinch is welcome and deserves intense study and development.
LDX Lab View with Legends. Click image for the largest view.
The superconducting LDX magnet is levitated by a powerful electromagnetic field, and is used to control the motion of the 10-million-degree-hot electrically charged gas, or plasma, contained within its 16-foot-diameter outer chamber. When operating, the huge LDX magnet is supported by the magnetic field from an electromagnet positioned overhead. The supporting magnet is controlled continuously by a computer control system acting on precision monitoring of the position using eight laser beams and detectors. The position of the half-ton magnet, which carries a current of one million amperes (compared to a typical home’s total capacity of 200 amperes) can be maintained this way to within half a millimeter. A cone-shaped support with springs is positioned under the magnet to catch it safely if anything goes wrong with the control system.
“Levitation is crucial because the magnetic field used to confine the plasma would be disturbed by any objects in its way, such as any supports used to hold the magnet in place. In the experimental runs, they recreated the same conditions with and without the support system in place, and confirmed that the confinement of the plasma was dramatically increased in the levitated mode, with the supports removed. With the magnet levitated, the central peak of plasma density developed within a few hundredths of a second, and closely resembled those observed in planetary magnetospheres.”
Kesner summarizes the difference between the two approaches explaining, “(I)n a tokamak, the hot plasma is confined inside a huge magnet, but in the LDX the magnet is inside the plasma. The whole concept was inspired by observations of planetary magnetospheres made by interplanetary spacecraft. In turn for planetary research the experiments in LDX can yield “a lot more subtle detail than you can get by launching satellites, and more cheaply.””
Kesner and co-director the project Michael E. Mauel, professor of applied physics at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science published the results last week in the journal Nature Physics.
The team is saying say that if the turbulence-induced density enhancement exhibited by the LDX could be scaled up to larger devices, it might enable them to recreate the conditions necessary to sustain fusion reactions, and thus may point the way toward abundant and sustainable production of fusion energy.
Stewart Prager, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in observing the unique geometry of the system says, “LDX is one of the most novel fusion plasma physics experiments underway today. Theoretical predictions indicate that the confinement of energy might be very favorable (for producing practical fusion power, but the theory needs to be confirmed in practice) For these benefits to be realized, the somewhat bold theoretical predictions must be realized experimentally.”
Prager is right, the LDX is one of several magnetic confining forms to hold fusion fuel and manipulate it. The curiosity here is the magnet is in the plasma, which begs the question of its operating parameters during fusion events. Tests of that nature will be intensely interesting.
Mauel and Kesner’s LDX project is now through more than 10 years of design, construction and testing. The first experimental results in its levitated configuration occurred last year are being reported in the analysis published this week. A newly installed microwave interferometer array, developed by MIT PhD ‘09 graduate student Alex Boxer was used to make the precision measurements of the plasma concentrations that were used to observe the turbulent pinch.
The team offers another pathway outside of the massively expensive and time-consuming tokamak system. Add one more confinement idea. Something is going to work. What do you think?
