Jul
3
Chicken Feathers Can Store Lots of Hydrogen
July 3, 2009 | 1 Comment
Carbonized chicken feather fibers can hold vast amounts of hydrogen according to Richard P. Wool, Ph.D., professor of chemical engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program at the University of Delaware in Newark.
Chicken Feathers. Click image for the largest view.
Chicken feather fibers are mostly made of keratin, a natural protein that forms strong, hollow tubes. When heated, the protein creates cross links, which strengthen its structure, and it also becomes more porous, increasing its surface area. The result is carbonized chicken feather fibers, which can absorb as much or perhaps more hydrogen than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides, two other materials being studied for their hydrogen storage potential, Wool says. Plus, they’re dirt-cheap.
The project goal is to develop new low cost hydrogen storage substrates from the waste material chicken feathers (some 6 billion lbs/yr in U.S. alone). The results show that carbonized chicken feathers have the potential to meet the DOE requirements for H2 storage of 81 grams H2 per L in 2015 and are competitive with carbon nanotubes and metal hydrides at a tiny fraction of the cost. When keratin based chicken feathers are heat treated by a controlled pyrolysis process, hollow carbon microtubes are formed with nanoporous walls. Their specific surface area increases up to 450 m2/g by the formation of fractals and micropores thus enabling more hydrogen adsorption than the raw, untreated feather fibers.
Wool estimates that it would take a 75-gallon tank to go 300 miles in a car using carbonized chicken feather fibers to store hydrogen. He says his team is working to improve that range.
The research was presented by Erman Senoz, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the 13th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, could eventually help overcome some of the hurdles to using hydrogen fuel in cars, trucks and other machinery.
Wool says, “Carbonized chicken feather fibers have the potential to dramatically improve upon existing methods of hydrogen storage and perhaps pave the way for the practical development of a truly hydrogen-based energy economy,”
A nirvana moment for the pure hydrogen fuel crowd. A natural product to store the smallest atom in a molecule form. Hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, has long been touted as a clean and abundant energy alternative to fossil fuels. But its physical characteristics make it very difficult to store and transport. When warm to a pressurized gas it takes up about 40 times as much space as gasoline; as a liquid it needs to be kept at extremely low temperatures. Problematic stuff.
Wool says, “The problem with hydrogen as a gas or liquid is its density is too low. Using currently available technology, if you had a 20-gallon tank and filled it with hydrogen at typical room temperature and pressure, you could drive about a mile. When we started we didn’t know how well carbonized chicken feathers would work for hydrogen storage, but we certainly suspected we could do a lot better than that.”
According to Wool using carbonized chicken feathers would only add about $200 to the price of a car. By comparison, making a 20-gallon hydrogen fuel tank that uses carbon nanotubes could cost $5.5 million; one that uses metal hydrides could cost up to $30,000. That perspective really makes the carbonized feather fiber attractive.
This kind of innovative investigation and development, making connections that seem to begin with the utterly silly could have major impact eventually helping overcome some of the hurdles to using hydrogen as a fuel in cars, trucks and other machinery. Knowing your organic chemistry might have a major payoff someday.
Jul
2
The Focus Fusion Interview with Eric Lerner
July 2, 2009 | 1 Comment
Sander Olson has interviewed Eric Lerner who is famed for his leadership and innovations that form the Focus Fusion Society. The society is a charitable organization attempting to develop the focus fusion technology ideas and concepts into commercial reactors.
Focus Fusion Nuclear BP. Click image for the animated view.
Sander Olson is a journalist with a good, and it seems to me, quirky reputation. But I’m a known skeptic on journalists. Mr. Olson has the trained journalist’s gift for questions. But the quirky thing is the questions are so light and not in depth. Truthfully, Mr. Lerner’s site is way more informative – unless you seek to get to know Mr. Lerner.
Brian Wang is posting Mr. Olson’s interview and has assigned a page for a full reading. It’s not long and Olson edits the piece such that one can get through it enjoyably in short order.
To review, Lerner is trying to use pulses of plasma to burn boron so it fuses throwing off highly energized electrons, which could be loaded directly into the grid -so to speak in the shorthand version. This is the same method of releasing energy and gathering fusion energy production as Bussard and Rostocker are attempting in much larger devices.
Animated Focus Fusion. Click image for the animated view.
Bussard is pretty much out with most details for those looking and has a strong reputation in both the physics and the engineering. Rostocker’s group is much more quiet and is well funded. One can see at all over the Internet a wealth of information about Bussard’s concept – its elegant, simple and using physics principles of sheer speed to drive the fusion events.
Rostocker isn’t so well understood, but one can see the patent, which offers clues as to how the device might work. I simply am puzzled, but others conclude the device also uses velocity as Bussard does, yet sort of has the fuel “rear ending” itself as it whizzes about. I’m enthused but bewildered, so time will tell someday.
Lerner though is like the Bussard group – much more up front. The idea isn’t speed or velocity but raw heat for the fusion conditions. The engineering is in the control or perhaps the condition of the plasma. Lerner’s project has a classy and innovative means to concentrate the heat such that the fuel gets extremely hot. Lets hope it works as these devices need not be huge and might well miniaturize over time. Lerner and Bussard both have concepts that can be envisioned, so they both earn our attention.
Back to Olson’s interview, its only 10 questions. But the answers are informative. Lerner expects the burn a hydrogen boron compound known as PB-11. Of course that disallows any form of “meltdown,” (there’s that quirky trait). Lerner is performing experiments now for feasibility testing and plans to build a new device within weeks with data coming this fall.
Lerner knows, as do the Bussard team and the Rostocker people that PB-11 is difficult to burn. But Lerner is counting on instability of the fuel for more complete burnup. He believes that aspect will get his project to net energy output before either Bussard or Rostocker.
Olson gently challenges Lerner about the cost of electricity. Lerner’s site is said to claim a 2/10th¢ production cost. Lerner explains, “We are planning on building a 5 megawatt generator that when in mass-production should cost approximately $300,000. So that comes out to about 6 cents per watt for the equipment. Second, the fuel itself is virtually free, and each generator only consumes about 5 pounds of fuel per year.” OK, then. Lets hope so.
Of note Lerner is thinking that 5 MW units are the upper limit for his devices. But they could be ganged together for large-scale generation.
Lerner next explains that the plan is to get through three stages, a feasible lab device that produces net energy, a functional prototype, and the stage of implementation of licensing for the building of units for sale.
Closing up Lerner notes that other fuels may be tried, but realizes that the PB-11 path is the only likely prospect. On the money side Lerner and his people have attracted support in the past such as NASA and currently runs on a grant from the Abell Foundation. A very smart guy, Lerner is planning to license the technology for others to build saleable units. One note to everyone should Mr. Lerner come up with marketable and low cost production of electrical power saying, “we intend to ensure that the price of focus fusion power is as close as possible to the cost of production.” Admirable, but Lerner’s whole life has been that way.
I sure hope he succeeds. Both the concept and the man deserve a history making success.
Jul
1
Does Hydrogenation of CO2 Have a Future?
July 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment
The US Naval Research Laboratory and the Center for Applied Energy Research at the University of Kentucky are investigating the hydrogenation of CO2 using a conventional Fischer-Tropsch cobalt catalyst for the production of valuable hydrocarbon materials. Using a straight dose of CO2 the researchers have managed to use catalysts to convert the gas and water vapor back into basic fuel products. Monday we had a look at research yielding a much more efficient CO2 collector. Now hydrogenation of CO2 is getting a little more attention.
The focus of this work is attempting to improve the production distribution toward the higher chain hydrocarbons and increase conversion rates using conventional Fischer-Tropsch catalysts. Backed by the U.S. Department of Defense, the motive is clear, the Department of Defense is the single largest buyer and consumer of fuel at 12.6 million barrels per day. That’s a big fuel user.
The research has been reported online June 25 in the ACS journal Energy & Fuels. Comparatively speaking, little research has been performed applying CO2 as the carbon source in synthetic fuel production, which as a blanket statement might be true, but activity in hydrogenation is ongoing. CO2 while a notability stable chemical, is thought to have too high of an energy barrier for polymerization, even in the presence of a catalyst. Gathering the CO2 to start and the processing of reforming each have energy costs to manage.
The researchers conducted the CO2 hydrogenation reactions in a one-liter three-phase slurry continuously stirred tank reactor. The team measured the ability to direct product distribution as a function of different feed gas ratios of H2 and CO2 (3:1, 2:1, and 1:1) as well as operating pressures ranging from 450 to 150 psig. Under all conditions investigated, methane remains the primary product, with concentrations ranging from 97.6% of the product to 93.1%. Higher concentrations of C2-C4 the range of ethane to butane hydrocarbons were found at the 1:1 ratio. The researchers also found that the portion of longer chain hydrocarbons, the hydrocarbons above methane increases with increasing time on stream, irrespective of the H2/CO2 ratio. That makes sense.
In the paper the team suggests that deactivation of the methane-forming active sites on the catalyst with increasing time on steam may play a role in the product distribution shift toward C2-C4 HC. Time on steam with the team’s catalysts seems to affect the product yield irrespective of the feed gas ratios. We can see that the energy input for this process is going to be the process heat to make steam.
Today it’s quite desirable to come out with higher carbon atom hydrocarbons. Methane or methanol fuels for fuel cells remains experimental although they would be great battery or capacitor rechargers across a wide range of products.
So the team’s effort is driving to longer carbon chains leads to directions such as exploring the hypothesis that the change in the feed gas ratio leads to a lowering of the catalyst’s methanation ability of CO2 in favor of chain growth, with two different active sites for methane and C2-C4 products present on the surface of the catalyst.
Steam drive is just one path. As Al Fin pointed out Monday in his comment that biology has been at this for billions of years. Another is sunlight drive.
Researchers at Penn State are developing a method for the more efficient solar conversion of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane and other hydrocarbons using nitrogen-doped titania nanotube arrays. These arrays feature a wall thickness low enough to facilitate effective carrier transfer to the adsorbing species, and are surface-loaded with nanodimensional islands of co-catalysts platinum (Pt) and/or copper (Cu).
Penn State's Sunight Drive Photocatalytic CO2 Converter. Click image for more.
The research yield has this rate of CO2 to hydrocarbon production obtained with outdoor sunlight up to at least 20 times higher than previous published reports. The previous work was done with UV illumination under laboratory conditions.
The Penn State photocatalytic methane-forming reaction requires eight photons, with additional photons required for other hydrocarbons. From the paper published in the January 27 issue of the ACS journal Nano Letters its said, “…we sought to enhance photocatalytic carbon dioxide conversion rates by using the following strategies: (i) employ high surface area titania nanotube arrays, with a wall thickness low enough to facilitate efficient transfer of photogenerated charge carriers to the surface species; (ii) modify the titania band gap to absorb and utilize the visible portion of the solar spectrum where the bulk of the solar energy lies; (iii) distribute cocatalyst nanoparticles on the nanotube array surface to adsorb the reactants and help the redox process.”
The gas sample analysis of the reaction products showed methane in high proportion, while ethane, propane, butane, pentane, and hexane as well as olefins and branched paraffins were also found in low concentrations. This is an interesting result as pentane and hexane are near gasoline carbon molecules. Paraffins are excellent bases for lubricants.
The Penn State team offers some interesting process conceptualization on the chemical energy during a conversion, “…a likely process in the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 by Cu or Pt loaded samples is the reduction of CO2 via the reaction CO2 + 2e- → CO + ½O2, which involves a free energy change of about 257 kJ/mol (1.33 eV per electron). The CO, thus formed, would react with atomic hydrogen to form hydrocarbons . . . Further rigorous studies are required to verify the validity of this hypothesis and understand the role of OH radicals and O2 in the possible back reactions.”
While this field is still small, the possibilities are incredible. Much more intelligence could be applied here. The connecting technologies are maturing as well. The Penn State team said it well, “We hope this work opens new avenues for carbon recycling using renewable sources.”
Indeed. There is a future for CO2 hydrogenation. A Hat Tip to Matt, you can read his thoughts in comments, for the prompt to write this post.
Jun
30
A Bump On the CO2 Road to Hell
June 30, 2009 | 4 Comments
On June 25th the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released a draft copy of the suppressed EPA report by EPA employee Alan Carlin. Carlin is critical of the EPA’s position on carbon dioxide saying, “The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and thus may contain inaccuracies which were corrected in the final report.” CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman said, “While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today.”
Well, that was last Thursday, and the world hasn’t shaken. Meanwhile the estimable Anthony Watts covered the release much to the dismay of anyone in on the scheme to seize the world economy by its fuel and energy sources. It is a bump on the road, not a stop sign or barrier. But now the pdf file of the report is out, getting posted about and finding new homes on servers across the planet. The CO2 mafia and its fellow travelers might take note, the scheme to seize the energy of the planet is a road to hell. While self-interested scientists, characterless media and press and opportunistic politicians may be dragging us all down the road, the economy will figure it out someday and leave hell – stranding the CO2 mafia and the followers in a very uncomfortable situation.
The report has an important thought, covered in the opening preface about the science, which kindly doesn’t point out the failings, rather says, “We believe our concerns and reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious review of the science before any attempt is made to reach conclusions on the subject.” That comment makes clear that some in the regulatory world understand that the consequences could be dire and the blame will first fall on those running the regulations. As career people getting hooked by the CO2 scheme it could be far more dangerous that many realize. But that’s not stopping the political class from loading the regulatory people, there’s big money to be made from the scheme not to mention the incredible power over, well, everyone. There’s your scandal inside the government. Some folks already know – this isn’t going to work out.
The chosen tool for now is the cap and trade legislation that got through the House of Representatives last week. In a nutshell, cap and trade isn’t much about a clean atmosphere, it’s about moving money. Lots of money from the many to the government where sticky fingers keep a chunk and then pass out the remaining cash to the selected few. There’s your Al Gore and his cronies moment.
Since last week Slashdot picked up the Anthony Watts page, Fox News began Monday afternoon running a streamer on the report being squashed and other little bits have made it closer to mainstream media attention. It’s a long way from being the scandal that deserves being attended to. Time will tell if this attempt by the Obama administration to cover up the facts will be a CO2 turning point. Lets hope they try to keep the report squashed and the hounds of the media do their jobs.
But that isn’t the point. The report simply compiles a lot of information that many of us have been considering for years. The report still runs nearly one hundred pages. Its doesn’t accomplish the main point, to inform the public that CO2 based global warming is a scheme to extract their money with such things as laws like cap and trade. People are going to have their wallets turned out on a fraud.
People are busy. The economy is tougher, many are out of work, most of the rest realize the good times are over. Now the dominant political group in control is using the uncertainty, desperation and accumulated misinformation to hatch their scheme. Folks are too busy to notice.
For those of us interested in more energy cheaper, the CO2 fraud and cap and trade bill are disasters. You don’t ever get more of anything when the government is regulating the products, the markets or contents. Energy and fuels will cost more, but the regulated market is distorted, so the customers don’t reward the best and cheapest, the simply pay the designated provider. You know, the ones with the political influence. Energy and fuels are going to get far more expensive than anyone is projecting, and the new innovations will never see a shot at the market.
The glory days of new energy resources, new ways to produce fuels and all the biological and chemical processes and physics innovations and engineering challenges will slowly die while the selected few become billionaires.
Alan Carlin and Sam Kazman, public and private servants, deserve our thanks. Anthony Watts and his supporters have earned our admiration and support. The news outlets that cover the squashing have worthy moments for our attention and notice.
But most of all, each of us needs to consider investing a few minutes to get up to speed on the CO2 fraud and make sure the political people know that you know. There have to be repercussions, no matter how much campaign money is involved, that make clear that being in on the scheme is a career ending enterprise.
To help out the API has a widget to contact the legislators. It’s worth a try.
Jun
29
Catching CO2 on the Cheap
June 29, 2009 | 6 Comments
Klaus Lackner, the Ewing-Worzel Professor of Geophysics in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University “starred” in an article by CNN’s Hilary Whiteman last Monday. Being CNN, starred will have to do, sorry. Nevertheless, One cannot fault Lackner, he’s been at his project since 1998. As ideas go, merits aside, CO2 does have its uses – gathered cleaned and concentrated to pure form. Lackner has a new gathering method that’s said to be much less expensive to operate.
Lackner is developing a structure that can capture atmospheric carbon dioxide 1,000 times faster than a real tree. Whether the name is coming from Lackner or CNN, it’s now being called a “synthetic tree.” This synthetic “tree” doesn’t need direct sunlight, water, a trunk, or branches to function, as it looks more like a cylinder. No shady spot here, unless you add a porch. Each synthetic tree would absorb one ton of carbon dioxide per day, eliminating an amount of CO2 approximate to that produced by 20 U.S. cars. But the catch is – each unit is said to cost only about $30,000 to build.
Artist Concept of Lackner's Synthetic Tree. Click image for more.
That would be 365 tons of CO2 annually for a sunk investment of $30K. Whoa, the algae folks and everyone else needing CO2 in high concentrations had better have a look. Lackner told CNN the synthetic tree is highly efficient for its size. He and his colleagues have developed an (ab)sorbent that is “close to the ideal,” in that it uses a relatively small amount of energy to release the CO2 and is not prohibitively expensive. Lackner says, “By the time we make liquid CO2 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of CO2.” That makes the biggest cost at the back-end of the collector, primarily the technology used to release the CO2 from the (ab)sorbent. I am curious to know, just what does it cost to yield CO2 in gas form?
Somehow, Lackner and CNN’s reporter Hilary Whiteman come upon this analogy to explain efficiency. – Not to worry, the sense of the collector will become apparent. – When compared, for example, to a modern power-generating wind turbine, Lackner says, “If you give me one of those big windmills which have those big areas through which the rotor moves — how much CO2 could I avoid? And if I had an equally sized CO2 collector — how much CO2 can I collect? It turns out the collector is several hundred times better than the windmill.”
The meat of the collector importance becomes apparent when Lackner says, “By the time we make liquid CO2 we have spent approximately 50 kilojoules [of electricity] per mole of CO2.” Compare that, Lackner said, to the average power plant in the U.S., which produces one mole of CO2 with every 230 kilojoules of electricity. In other words, if we simply plugged our device in to the power grid to satisfy its energy needs, for every roughly 1000 kilograms of carbon dioxide we collect we would re-emit 200, so 800 we can chalk up as having been successful.” Environmentalist logic can be fun, huh?
So, in real world terms, after using a fuel and selling the energy one could spend about 20% of the energy production to recover the CO2 in saleable form. Having watched this area without any posts to the blog as of yet, this is a number that finally makes some sense. CO2 is fuel, remember, it can feed algae, be reformed back into synthetic fuels and a wealth of other products. What we haven’t seen are numbers that score prices of captured CO2 for such uses.
But that’s what needs done. $30K per 365 annual tons plus the cost of the electricity to clean the CO2 out of the (ab)sorbent for ready to reuse CO2 in liquid form has to have some market power. Time will tell what a gas form of supply might be priced.
Lackner is targeting carbon that’s already in the air, so the technology is not being developed as an alternative to the carbon capture and storage methods currently being tested for large-scale use on coal-fired power stations. That means that the collectors could be in the very best places where CO2 can be put to use.
This may seem a little far “out there.” But recycling CO2 is an essential part of the future whether or not the media and political class catch on. There are great swaths of the world suitable for growing CO2 consuming plants for fuel products that would benefit greatly from an added CO2 supply. One of the main products from processing biomatter is CO2, so when cheap enough, CO2 can be a direct route to synthetic fuels.
That may be a bit far out there for many, but cheap CO2 is really exciting here.
Jun
26
Virent is the Bio Fuel Producer to Beat
June 26, 2009 | 1 Comment
Virent Energy Systems is receiving one of the five 2009 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards for Small Business for its BioForming process, the water-based, catalytic method to make bio gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel from the sugar, starch, or cellulose of plants that requires little external energy beyond that of the biomass feedstock.
Virent’s catalytic bio forming process combines its proprietary aqueous-phase reforming technology with conventional catalytic processing technologies used in petroleum refining. The petroleum processes include catalytic hydrotreating and catalytic condensation processes, including ZSM-5 acid condensation, base catalyzed condensation, acid catalyzed dehydration, and alkylation. When combined as shown in the process chart it leads to petroleum substitutes in the same range of hydrocarbon molecules now refined from petroleum.
As with a conventional petroleum refinery, each of these process steps in the bio forming process series can be optimized and modified to produce a particular set of desired hydrocarbon products. Gasoline products can be produced using the zeolite (ZSM-5) based process, jet fuel and diesel can be produced using a base catalyzed condensation route, and a high-octane fuel can be produced using a dehydration/oligomerization route.
Virent's Bioforming Process Chart. Click image for the larger view.
The Virent technique is in direct chemical contrast to biological fermentation. Virent’s process can use mixed sugar streams, polysaccharides, and C5 and C6 sugars derived from cellulosic biomass. First, water-soluble carbohydrates are catalytically hydrotreated for fractionation as a pre treatment. Next, in Virent’s APR (Aqueous Phase Reforming) process, the resulting sugar alcohols react with water over another proprietary heterogeneous metal catalyst to form hydrogen and chemical intermediates. Then the product stream is processed with one of multiple catalytic routes, which turns these chemicals into gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel components. The technology also produces alkane fuel gases and other chemicals.
The pretreatment and fractionation followed by the APR process uses more of the plant mass per acre, provides better land use and higher value for farmers. The technology needs little energy input, nearly self-sustaining, and can be completely renewable.
The gasoline to diesel fuel products are non miscible so they separate naturally from water. As a result, the process eliminates the energy-intensive alcohol distillation step to separate and collect biofuels required by other biology process technologies.
The hydrocarbon biofuels from Virent’s process are interchangeable with petroleum products, matching them in composition, functionality, and performance; they work in today’s engines, fuel pumps, and pipelines. Preliminary analysis suggests that Virent’s BioForming process can compete economically with petroleum-based fuels and chemicals at crude oil prices of $60 a barrel.
If all that’s true at scale its an award well worth the win.
Virent saw a big year in 2007. The big news was the start of collaboration with Shell Oil. Then in 2008 Virent produced more than 40 liters of biogasoline for engine testing and began fabrication of its first 10,000-gallon-per-year pilot plant to produce biogasoline. The collaboration agreement with Shell runs for five years focusing on optimizing the process for the production of gasoline like molecules.
Virent is exclusive licensee of the APR process—developed by its co-founders Dr. Randy Cortright and Dr. Jim Dumesic at the University of Wisconsin – Madison—for the conversion of readily available biomass-generated sugar feedstocks to carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels or hydrogen. The sugars can be sourced from non-food sources like corn stover, switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp, in addition to conventional biofuel feedstocks like wheat, corn and sugarcane. The BioForming process is Virent’s first commercial application of the APR pathway.
The BioForming process can speed the use of non-food plant sugars to replace petroleum as an energy source, thus both decreasing dependence on fossil hydrocarbons and minimizing the impact on global water and food supplies.
The BioForming platform is near commercialization. With Shell on board there is little doubt that the APR process with the refining skills will get a shot at going to commercial scale.
The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge is now in its 14th year. Run by the Environmental Protection Agency the award promotes research and development of less-hazardous alternatives to existing technologies that reduce or eliminate waste, particularly hazardous waste, in industrial production. An independent panel of technical experts convened by the American Chemical Society selected the winners from nearly 100 nominated technologies.
That’s the leader. For this week at least. They’re claiming to be commercial at $60 oil equivalent. There’s the target.
Jun
25
Competition Grows For Orbital Solar Power
June 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment
PowerSat Corp. has filed a provisional patent for two technologies called BrightStar and Solar Power Orbital Transfer, that are expected make the transmission of space solar power more cost-effective by reducing the price for launch and operation of systems as large as 2,500 megawatts by about $1 billion.
This follows Solaren’s recently signed deal for the first-ever power purchase agreement to deliver 200 megawatts of solar energy from space with California’s Pacific Gas & Electric.
Meanwhile the Swiss company Space Energy is working toward the launch of a prototype satellite in the next 2 to 3 years.
Quickly reviewing, the idea is to use orbiting satellites, called powersats, to collect solar energy in space, many times more potent than the hottest brightest desert sun and beam it down to earth. Unlike the intermittent solar energy at the planet’s surface, an orbital power satellite is not interrupted by clouds and the night and they could provide virtually unlimited emissions free energy undiminished by atmosphere or cloud cover. Operating 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, an orbital satellite system would receive 20 to 25 times the energy of a similar-sized terrestrial solar power plant in theory, at the cost of a large hydroelectric power project.
Its being said that orbital power satellites can work reliably when composed of proven technologies using standard satellites, standard high capacity solar panels, electricity to radio wave converters and radio wave transmitters and receivers. The companies working in orbital power seem to agree a utility scale system should be deployable within the next decade. Here is PowerSat’s video on YouTube.
PowerSat Corp., a partner of PowerSat Limited in London and a subsidiary of PowerSat International in Gibraltar has filed U.S. Provisional Patent No. 61/177,565 for “Space Based Power Systems and Methods.” The company, only founded in 2001, has obtained $3-to-$5 million in angel funding to begin the proof of concept process with a 10-kilowatt demonstration of wireless power transmission capability on Earth. In the meantime it’s negotiating a first round of further venture financing in “the single-digit millions.” Later hopes are to launch a $100 million, low-earth-orbit project by 2015 and then partner with a utility or government agency on a utility-scale project of 2.5 gigawatts, at a cost of $4-to-$5 billion, between 2019 and 2021. This is cheaper than nukes or clean coal.
Orbital solar arrays have been in the imaginative mind since the 1960s. Science has caught up with imagination; the plausibility has advanced theory into serious research. It’s a risky place to invest billions of dollars because the power that is landed on the surface may not be enough to return a profit on the invested capital.
That makes the first of PowerSat’s breakthroughs of cost cutting technologies is called BrightStar important. It reduces the single big, array-carrying satellite into a cluster of hundreds of small satellites that work together with wireless electronic connectivity to broadcast a single beam to the earth receiving station, called a “rectenna.” BrightStar allows for launching sets of clusters in varying capacities. Those are joined into a more efficient system that is more reliable because a failure of a single unit or cluster does not mean the failure of the entire system and faulty individual elements can be replaced without causing down time or replacement of the whole system. Sensible, pragmatic and getting serious in capital risk management now.
PowerSat's Brightstar. Click image for more.
PowerSat’s other cost saving concept is “Solar Power Orbital Transfer” a technology that uses the solar array’s electricity to power the satellite’s electronic thrusters. The thrusters boost the satellites from low earth orbit, 300-to-1,000 miles up to the geosynchronous earth orbit, 22,236 miles up. Using its own solar energy-generated electricity for the boost eliminates the need for an orbital vehicle, the extra fuel needed to lift the system to high orbit so cutting the weight of the launch by some estimated 67%, which dramatically decreases the cost.
It isn’t much of a stretch to consider using something such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 lift vehicle. That would skip past the Fed’s and the NASA determined price to lift to orbit. The investment might well pan out, becoming the cash cow to end all cash cows if the things would stay operating with low cost maintenance over a long time. The technology to drive to higher orbits alone may well prove worthwhile.
I’m not clear on the mathematic calculation behind PowerSat CEO William Maness comment, “This patent filing is a watershed moment not only for PowerSat but for a renewables industry that, until now, could neither compete economically nor generate power at the base load scale of oil or coal. Today, the convergence of technology and energy demand, combined with the political will to wean us off of fossil fuels, enables space solar power to fill a widening clean energy supply gap.” Just how pricey he expects the power to be might be cause for investor alarm, because by no means is the competition, government intervention or not, going to disappear without a price fight.
Jun
24
A Better Bio Jet Fuel
June 24, 2009 | 1 Comment
Over the past year a consortium made up of Boeing, engine makers and Air New Zealand, Continental Airlines and Japan Airlines tested several jet fuel blends of up to 50% biofuel. They’re saying that bio fuel is not only good for the airplanes’ carbon footprint – it actually performs as well, if not better, than its petroleum-based equivalent. The issue is a crucial one for the airline industry, which has vowed to achieve carbon-neutral growth by 2020 and whose fortunes are tightly tied to the volatile price of crude oil.
The blends were different oil combinations from jatropha, camelina (a fatty mustard-like seed) and algae. The biofuels used in the tests were “drop-in”, which means that engines didn’t require modification. Boeing says the blends didn’t damage the equipment, actually proved to have more power from a greater energy content than standard petroleum jet fuel. That can potentially better fuel economy with some engineering and tuning adjustments.
Boeing BioFuel Test Chart. Click Image for the Largest View.
The environmental crowd should be pleased as well. An executive summary of the consortium’s research says a blend that included jatropha and camelina can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 65% to 80% from standard petroleum-based fuel.
Petroleum-based jet fuels have a freezing point of between –40º and –47º C. The blends freezing point was between –56º and –63º C, much colder than petroleum-based jet fuels. The debate about cold effects may be coming to an end with some standards applied.
Darrin Morgan, Boeing’s director of sustainable biofuels strategy says to satisfy the global aviation industry’s demand with jatropha and camelina requires planting an area the size of Germany. That’s before agronomy, crop and genetic science and hybrid technology is applied.
We’ve looked Jatropha before so lets have a look on the latest about Camelina.
Camelina Sativa. Click image for more.
David Shonnard, Robbins Chair Professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan Tech conducted an analysis of jet fuel made from camelina oil to measure its carbon dioxide emissions over the course of its life cycle, from planting to tailpipe. Getting the environmental issue behinds us Shoddard is reporting camelina could cut jet fuel’s cradle-to-grave carbon emissions by 84 percent – a wee bit better than the Boeing blended fuels test.
Camelina sativa originated in Europe and is a member of the mustard family, along with broccoli, cabbage and canola. Sometimes it’s called false flax or gold-of-pleasure. It thrives in the semi-arid conditions of the Northern Plains; the camelina used in Shonnard’s study was grown in Montana.
Shonnard explains the points, “Jets can’t use oxygenated fuels like ethanol; they have to use hydrocarbon replacements.” The oil from camelina can be converted to a hydrocarbon green jet fuel that meets or exceeds all petroleum jet fuel specifications. “It is almost an exact replacement for fossil fuel,”
Shoddard was actually being paid to analyze the camelina life cycle for UOP LLC, of Des Plaines Ill, a subsidiary of Honeywell who is also a provider of oil refining technology. UOP cited Boeing’s work quoting managing director of environmental strategy Billy Glover who called camelina “one of the most promising sources for renewable fuels that we’ve seen. It performed as well if not better than traditional jet fuel during our test flight with Japan Airlines earlier this year and supports our goal of accelerating the market availability of sustainable, renewable fuel sources that can help aviation reduce emissions. It’s clear from the life cycle analysis that camelina is one of the leading near-term options and, even better, it’s available today.”
Well, it’s available in incredibly small quantities.
Tom Kalnes, senior development associate for UOP in its renewable energy and chemicals research group, used hydro processing, a technology commonly used in the refining of petroleum, to develop a flexible process that converts camelina oil and other biological feedstocks into green jet fuel and renewable diesel fuel. Kalnes says of camelina use, “It depends. There are a few critical issues. The most critical is the price and availability of commercial scale quantities of a second-generation feedstock. Today the costs for camelina, and other second-generation feedstock options like jatropha and algae, remain higher than the cost of crude oil, and there are still only limited amounts available. Further technology development is needed to drive down the costs and ramp up to commercial-scale harvesting. We are seeing great momentum in this area and believe that biofuels made using camelina will be commercially available for blending into the diesel and jet fuel supplies in the next three to five years. This is much sooner than many imagined.”
The barrier is more farmers need to be convinced to grow a new crop, and the fuel refiners must want to process it. Currently even $70 a barrel oil isn’t going to get there.
On the cheery side is camelina needs little water or nitrogen to flourish, it can be grown on marginal agricultural lands. Shoddard says, “Unlike ethanol made from corn or biodiesel made from soy, it won’t compete with food crops, and it may be used as a rotation crop for wheat, to increase the health of the soil.”
A few years ago camelina was a northern plains weed subjected to control and efforts to limit its range. Today there isn’t much information of credible background to say what the improved yields of oil per land area would be. But the plant’s zone of growth limits its range without improvements. Just what improvements might do, say triple or quintuple the yield, camelina might very well make a bright future for those who grow it.
We’ve learned from corn ethanol that mandates from government can form an industry from nothing and that time and events have driven that business right into the petroleum industry’s camp. Experienced petroleum companies will do a lot of ethanol production from now on.
Improving camelina and jatropha can make a huge difference. As noted above the area required for such agricultural production to cover global air travel would need an area about the size of Germany or in a few years, about a third of that – or less. The key though is that air travel could contract for bio fuel – so leveling out the peaks and valleys of the crude of market not only for themselves, but everyone else as well.
Jun
23
It’s Time to Hurry to Get That New Car
June 23, 2009 | 2 Comments
Last Thursday saw the Senate pass the Cash for Gas Guzzlers bill inside the war funding bill. It’s a near certainty that President Obama will sign it into law. So, its time to look and see if the cash will apply to you and whether or not you can get it done in time. There is a limit, similar to the TV Converter Box Coupon Program, where the money ran out stranding millions of Americans. But its not a mere $40, it can be up to $4,500. It’s heads up time. But move on it before the money is gone.
Geoff Styles has been watching this and offers that the Detroit News has a tool on their site to see if you own one of the qualified guzzlers. What fits are cars and light trucks rated a combined (a blend of city and highway driving) 18 mpg or less; large pickups and SUVs at 15 mpg or less and work trucks built before 2002. The Detroit News tool is quick, has the fields to zero in on the engine, transmission and other characteristics that will qualify a guzzler or not. While it’s a handy tool, it’s not comprehensive, so the Fed’s own site www.fueleconomy.gov is the complete listing and the fallback, double check site.
It could be a pretty strong benefit, even when considering large vehicle. One needs to get a 4-mpg gain to qualify and a 10-mpg gain for the full benefit.
The bill has its detractors. My favorite examiners at the Wall Street Journal headlined their article about the bill “Cash From Lunkheads.” Probably so, but it’s cash to cut the cost of improving one’s personal transportation. The Journal also allowed two Senators to comment with a title of “Handouts for Hummers,” that while it’s still possible to buy one, has to fly in the face of incredible dopiness as GM has killed the Hummer line and they’re hardly the status symbol of two years ago. But that sort of thing has to be sold off, and will be at some price or another.
Even with Germany’s successful and quite expensive plan to rid itself of many gas guzzling vehicles, the U.S. bill just barely got in by getting tacked onto a ‘can’t fail to pass it’ bill for supporting the troops. Here is a link to the bill as found by Geoff.
Geoff has also studied the bill with these conclusions to guide the early shopper. These will have to do until the bureaucracy actually publishes the regulations.
· The car traded in must be no more than 25 years old, in drivable condition and certified at 18 mpg or less in EPA “combined fuel economy” (15 mpg for a typical SUV/light truck.).
· It must have been insured and registered to the owner for at least one year prior to trade-in.
· It must be shredded or crushed, though not before the auto recycler sells off any desirable parts.
· The new vehicle must get at least 22 mpg (15 mpg SUV/light truck) and,
· At least 4 mpg more than the trade-in (1 mpg SUV/light truck) to qualify for a $3,500 tax-free voucher, or,
· At least 10 mpg more (2 mpg SUV/light truck) to qualify for the maximum $4,500 tax-free voucher.
· It can’t cost over $45,000.
I expect Geoff will be accurate; it’s just a question of how the legal minds in the government read the law to know exactly how to buy and get the voucher.
I wouldn’t dither around. The program only runs from July 1, 2009 until November 1, 2009 with a meager $1 billion of funds behind it. That might cover 222,000 vehicles at the maximum payout each, which is a small number even in the current depressed market. Note that the whole spectrum of manufacturers are included, buying a U.S. nameplate isn’t a requirement, but with such far-flung parts sourcing and so many foreign nameplate plants in the U.S. – being able to tell would require checking the window sticker of every car for content.
It’s probable that the new car dealers will have the execution of the benefits set up shortly. So before the 222,000 gets passed before you, the shopping needs attended to very shortly. One wouldn’t want to be 222,001 and find the money gone. That $4,500 is a considerable chunk of a good sensible car and will have a considerable impact on the payment
Two more points, one is the Congress did, after months of waiting, re-fund the TV Converter Program. The other is the dealer you choose after zeroing on in your choice. The dealer will have to be up and running the voucher program on July 1.
Good luck. It’s a significant opportunity for the organized early actors. But 222,000 is only about a third of a month’s U.S. car sales now. The money could be gone in ten days or less.
Jun
22
A New Source of Bio Oil
June 22, 2009 | 1 Comment
Algae has a competitor coming for bio oil – diatoms have the potential to compete and may have a list of problems to price parity with petroleum that is different and may be less challenging.
The leading reasons behind diatom research are:
Geologists claim that much crude oil comes from diatoms.
Diatoms do indeed make oil.
Agriculturists claim that diatoms could make 10−200 times as much oil per hectare as oil seeds.
Therefore, sustainable energy could be made from diatoms.
NaVicula a Diatom with an Oil Droplet. Click image for more.
Richard Gordon of the University of Manitoba and T. V. Ramachandra, Durga Madhab Mahapatra and B. Karthick of the Centre for Ecological Sciences/Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India published a paper ‘Milking Diatoms for Sustainable Energy: Biochemical Engineering versus Gasoline-Secreting Diatom Solar Panels.’ The paper proposes ways of harvesting oil from diatoms, using biochemical engineering and also a newly conceived solar panel approach that utilizes genomically modifiable aspects of diatom biology.
The “milking” comes from diatom’s natural oil secretion that offers the prospect of “milking” diatoms for sustainable energy by altering them to actively secrete oil products. Secretion by and milking of diatoms may provide a way around the puzzle of how to make algae and other single cell based production that both grow quickly and have a very high oil content. There is a genome to mine here.
The paper discusses a problem that runs through the cell based oil production efforts saying,
“Generally, cell proliferation seems to be counterproductive to oil production on a per-cell basis, which is a problem that has been expressed as an unsolved Catch-22. However, this balance may shift in our favor when we start milking diatoms for oil instead of grinding them.” —Ramachandra et al.
While diatoms and algae are virtual brothers, diatoms are silica based shelled creatures. That aspect offers, as the paper outlines, a variety of harvesting techniques. Gordon explains diatoms are barely one-third of a strand of hair in diameter; they flourish in enormous numbers in oceans and other water sources. They die, drift to the seafloor, and deposit their shells and oil into the sediments. Estimates suggest that live diatoms could make 10-200 times as much oil per acre of cultivated area compared to oil seed plants.
The paper covers the potential this way:
“The transparent diatom silica shell consists of a pair of frustules and a varying number of girdle bands that both protect and constrain the size of the oil droplets within, and capture the light needed for their biosynthesis. We propose three methods: (a) biochemical engineering, to extract oil from diatoms and process it into gasoline; (b) a multiscale nanostructured leaf-like panel, using live diatoms genetically engineered to secrete oil (as accomplished by mammalian milk ducts), which is then processed into gasoline; and (c) the use of such a panel with diatoms that produce gasoline directly. The latter could be thought of as a solar panel that converts photons to gasoline rather than electricity or heat.”
Ready for some light confusion? The authors note that milk is not harvested from cows by grinding them up and extracting the milk, they propose that diatoms essentially be allowed to secrete the oil at their own pace, with selective breeding and alterations of the environment maximizing production.
“Mammalian milk contains oil droplets that are exocytosed from the cells lining the milk ducts. It may be possible to genetically engineer diatoms so that they exocytose their oil droplets. This could lead to continuous harvesting with clean separation of the oil from the diatoms, provided by the diatoms themselves. Higher plants have oil secretion glands, and diatoms already exocytose the silica contents of the silicalemma, adhesion and motility proteins, and polysaccharides, so the concept of secretion of oil by diatoms is not far-fetched.”
The oil itself is truly bull’s-eye stuff. The diatoms the authors have seen have oil production in the range of C7-C12 hydrocarbons, about 1/3 of tested diatoms produced α, β, γ, and δ-unsaturated aldehydes.
“With some optimism about the power of systems biology and how malleable microalgae might be, perhaps we could engineer diatoms that would make these compounds, or the lower-molecular-weight alkanes and alkenes, in great quantities. Given that pathways exist for the production of many alkanes, starting with 12-alkane, the production of shorter alkanes within genetically manipulated diatoms might be plausible. If not, we could fall back on known organic chemistry reactions to convert the natural products to alkanes.”
With more than 200,000 species from which to choose, and all the possible combinations of nutrient and genome manipulation, finding or creating the “best” diatom for sustainable gasoline will be challenging.
The authors offer up some basic guidelines for starting the species hunt:
- Choose planktonic diatoms with positive buoyancy or at least neutral buoyancy.
- Choose diatoms that harbor symbiotic nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria, which should reduce nutrient requirements.
- Choose diatoms that have high efficiency of photon use, perhaps from those that function at low light levels.
- Choose diatoms that are thermophilic, especially for solar panels subject to solar heating.
- Consider those genetics that have been demonstrated by paleogenetics that have contributed to fossil organics.
- For motile or sessile pennate diatoms that adhere to surfaces, buoyancy may be much less important than survival from desiccation, which seems to induce oil production. Therefore, the reaction of these diatoms to drying is a place to start. The reaction of oceanic planktonic species to drying has not been investigated, although one would anticipate that they have no special mechanisms for addressing this (for them) unusual situation.
- Genetic engineering of diatoms to enhance oil production has been attempted, but it has not yet been successful.
That’s a good beginning, a place to start. The list of guides also makes clear the huge variety of diatom genetics. The potential is factually non-calculable for now.
The innovative thing here is the author’s “head’s up” to look outside the algae field and into other species that offer oil production. While algae may be way further down the development road, there is a lot of road left to go. Diatoms may well offer another alternative source of biofuels if the finding can get in to people eager to find another solution. Then we’ll get so see what diatom production problems might be. The oil market is looking for scale in bio oil production, and the first ones there will have to be very good and low cost. Diatoms might just be the species to get there.
For other takes on the diatoms see:
