Nov

28

Another Way to See Catalysts At Work Plus a New Class of Catalysts

November 28, 2008 | 6 Comments

It seems to be a breakout month for catalysts. We just looked a few days ago at a method to see them working and now Rice University has announced and Michael Wong’s team has published their research in seeing catalysts work in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This new technique relies on nanoparticles [...]

Nov

27

A Couple Thanksgiving Day Treats

November 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Hey, getting away from the calories and that bloated feeling? Need a little insight, satire and hope for the days to come with a bit of reversed viewing to get a little perspective on all of this? Well, the Dow Industrials is about a 1000 points over the recent daily lows, mortgage rates fell nearly [...]

Nov

26

A Thorium Update

November 26, 2008 | 3 Comments

Way back on the main lists of power generation is the metal thorium that can be used similarly to uranium for fission nuclear fuel. Thorium misses most issues that concern people about nuclear power such as radioactivity, long-term waste issues and making weapons from the fuel. Last month saw Senator Orrin Hatch pop a bill, [...]

Nov

25

Anything Hot Equals Power

November 25, 2008 | 3 Comments

Low temperature heat, now claimed down to 65 degrees C is being used to generate electricity. That would scald you but isn’t hot in terms of being past the boiling point of water or oven cooking temperatures. It’s well within range of lots of geothermal. It’s easily under the waste heat temperature in most all [...]

Nov

24

A Not So Small War

November 24, 2008 | 5 Comments

For many the piracy off the horn of Africa seems interesting if a little remote. The stories about pirates catching up to freighter ships then asking for a ransom might seem an odd curiosity. But when pirates seize and move 2 million gallons of oil, or more than 36,000 tons of wheat we’re talking food [...]

Nov

21

Watching A Catalyst at Work

November 21, 2008 | 5 Comments

A team at Cornell University led by Professor Peng Chen has developed an internal reflection fluorescence microscope that is more versatile than commercial models designed to observe a catalyst at work. This is a first and an important breakthrough event. “Ingenious” as described by the University writer Bill Steele, the microscope is part of a [...]

Nov

20

Ideological Purity vs. Intelligence About Coal

November 20, 2008 | 6 Comments

With all the believers in the face of the best facts still pushing for global warming doomsdays, coal is having a difficult time as a fuel for the exploding need for electrical power generation. Now I fully agree that burning coal and sending clouds of effluents rich in nasty metals, sulfur compounds and an array [...]

Nov

19

Torrefaction – A New Process In Biomass and Biofuels

November 19, 2008 | 10 Comments

Torrefaction is a thermo-chemical treatment of biomass in the 200 to 340 degrees Celsius range. In this process the biomass partly (especially the hemi-cellulose) decomposes, giving off various types of volatiles. The remaining torrefied biomass (solid) has approximately 30% more energy content per unit of mass. Annually, photosynthesis is said to store 5-8 times more [...]

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