The Greening
Continues — The most
eclectic of what I read
By Harry Babad ©
2009
macCompanion
December 2009
Sources
& Credits:
Most of these
items, were located in the newsletter NewsBridge of ‘articles of interest’ to the
libraries users. It is electronically published by the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratories, in Richland WA. I then followed the provided link to
the source of the information and edited the content (abstracted) for our
readers.
Much of what I
will share also comes from the various weekly science and environmental
newsletters to which I subscribe. Their selection, my choices, is obviously,
and intentionally biased by my views.
The resulting
column contains a mini-summary with links to articles I
found interesting. I also get technology feeds from the New York Times,
Business Week, Discover Magazine, Science {AAAS} and the American Nuclear
Society.
With A Chip
on My Shoulder — I
avoid greening sites that equate a demonstration of a concept (e.g., lab test)
to having an industrially viable commercial solution; no government subsidies
don’t make things commercial — all governments have the proven habit of
bowing to either lobbyists or homo populous <the loudest voice> and have,
International, been shown to pick losers. Supporting R&D, and funding large
scale demos – wonderful; subsidizing industry — no way. The fifth
or sixth law of technology… if you don’t check the whole lifecycle of a new
process or energy solution; you’re going to fail — a 100% bomb out.
Now, As Usual in No Formal Order, the
Snippets
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Producing
Power from Undammed Rivers and Ocean Tides
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will receive about
$6.8 million to help make a reality renewable power production from ocean tides
and free-flowing rivers. The bulk of the money awarded by the Department of
Energy, $3.45 million, will be used to study how such renewable power
production might affect fish and other aquatic life.
Getting
power from sources of water movement without having to build expensive
structures such as dams and weirs is a potentially viable way of increasing our
supply of renewable energy. It also overcomes grid load evening problems with
interruptible power generation using windmills (no wind) and solar collectors
(nighttimes.)
Ms.
Cary notes, This work will help remove the roadblocks that currently prevent
developers from putting tidal-, wave- and current-powered machines in the
water," said Charlie Brandt, director of PNNL's Marine Sciences Laboratory
in Sequim. Research will be conducted over three years by staff at PNNL offices
in Richland, Sequim, Portland and Seattle.
Installing
technology in the ocean or in undammed stretches of rivers to produce renewable
power could have several potential impacts on fish. A turbine, paddlewheel or
other device likely would need to be installed, presenting a potential hazard
to fish from spinning pieces of the equipment.
Research
is needed to see how fish react to blades, which would be at 90 degrees to the
water flow. Scientists want to learn whether fish will see the blades as they
swim in hard flows and whether and how often they can move out of the way,
Brandt said. The fish behavior may change based on the type of machinery. In addition,
because the devices are connected to the power grid, an induced electromagnetic
field will be present. Researchers don't know how that will affect species that
detect prey based on their prey's electromagnetic field.
By Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald staff
writer
This story was published Wednesday
September 2nd 2009
http://www.hanfordnews.com/news/2009/story/13935.html
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Secretary
of Energy Chu Announces Completion of Critical Energy Conservation Appliance
Standards
Final
energy efficiency standards for beverage vending machines released
Washington,
DC – U.S. Energy
Secretary Steven Chu announced today that the Department of Energy has
completed energy efficiency standards for a critical group of appliances that
will together save up to 1.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide once in
effect. In February 2009, President Obama visited the Department of Energy
to emphasize the importance of quickening the pace of energy conservation
standards for appliances, while continuing to meet legal and statutory
deadlines. Yesterday, the minimum energy efficiency standards for beverage
vending machines – the last of the five energy conservation standards the
President highlighted in his memorandum to DOE – were published in the Federal
Register.
“These
energy efficiency appliance standards will play an important role in lowering
energy use in homes and business across the country,” said Secretary Chu.
“By improving the energy efficiency of each of these appliances – from
lighting to ovens to vending machines – we can save money, reduce carbon
pollution and increase our energy security.”
This
is the first time the Department of Energy is regulating energy consumption for
the approximately 2.3 million beverage vending machines in use in the U.S. The
final rule published on Monday will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to
9.6 million metric tons from 2012 through 2042 - roughly equivalent to removing
over 2 million automobiles from the road for a year – and will save
commercial customers of the machines between $38 and $52 million per year over
the same time period. The efficiency standards, which take effect in
2012, apply to both glass-front type and solid-front type beverage vending
machines that are commonly found in office buildings, schools, colleges, retail
sites, and manufacturing facilities.
This
year, DOE has also released energy conservation standards for:
· Dishwashers and
general service incandescent lamps
· Microwaves and
electric and gas kitchen ranges and ovens
· General service
fluorescent lamps and incandescent reflector lamps
· Commercial boilers
and air conditioning equipment
Each
of the final standards was issued on time and ahead of any applicable
deadlines. To ensure that the appliance standards are as effective as
possible, DOE will work to aggressively and consistently enforce energy
efficiency standards across the country.
US Department of Energy, September 1,
2009
http://www.energy.gov/news2009/7853.htm
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China Changes The Terms of the Climate Debate
China
will argue that Western consumers buying Chinese-made goods should pay their
fair share of the cost of cutting the pollution used to make the goods.
I
agree since that will make the goods more expensive and create more markets for
American manufacturers. In any case, it will serve to even up costs, especially
if Congress passes the impending climate change legislation with reasonable
control fees using cap and trade rules. (But again I’m not an economist; let’s
see what Business Week and The Economist Magazine have to say.
Ms.
Meredith notes “China has just laid out its negotiating position for the
upcoming summit in Copenhagen, where diplomats will gather in December to try
to hammer out an agreement on how to battle climate change. The West is not
going to like it. Essentially, China will argue that Western consumers buying
Chinese-made goods should pay their fair share of the cost of cutting the
pollution used to make the goods.
West
and East have been arguing for years about who is to blame for climate change
and how to cut down on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
Broadly speaking, developed countries like the U.S. have looked with alarm at
the fast increase of pollution in the East and insisted that nations like China
and India must save the planet by acting quickly to curb pollution. Developing
nations have cried foul, arguing that cutting pollution levels would
unacceptably slow down their economic development, keeping tens of millions of
people mired in poverty. They argue that the West was allowed to pollute during
its period of industrialization, and that they should be allowed to do the
same. They say it would be unfair to penalize poor countries when richer
Americans and Europeans consume far more energy than Asians do on a per-capita
basis.
Because
the U.S. and China are by far the world's biggest polluters--and China is
expected to surpass the U.S. this year in carbon dioxide emissions--they are
expected to be the drivers of debate in Copenhagen. Raising the stakes in an
already heated discussion, China has just taken the wheel with its new line that the consumers of end
products are responsible for the pollution it took to produce them.
Forbes Magazine by Robyn Meredith
Forbes.com 02 Sep 2009 — No better link found.
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Inventor
Develops Nonlethal Sonic Weapon
OAK
RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 1 (UPI) -- A U.S. inventor says he's developed a non-lethal,
portable sonic weapon that makes its targets drop their weapons and cover their
ears.
Lee
Bzorgi, director of the National Security Technology Center at the Y-12 nuclear
weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., says his new Banshee II device emits an ear-piercing,
144-decibel siren that can incapacitate those within range, the Knoxville
(Tenn.) News Sentinel reported Tuesday. The newspaper said the prototype is
powered by a 9-volt battery and uses proprietary circuitry to produce a noise
loud enough to force people to immediately cover their ears with their hands.
"It
also has a frequency-switching system that pumps your ear drums, so it sounds
like there's a drum beating there," Bzorgi told the newspaper. "You
physically feel it in your ear drum." He told the News Sentinel the
Banshee II has broad potential for law enforcement, such as an alternative to
the Taser.
"It's useful in my opinion to have a non-lethal weapon
that cannot kill people if you abuse it," he said. "So it is a true
nonlethal weapon."
Also
Checkout the Sonic Handgun, Weapon of the Future, March 13, 2008. http://www.gadgettastic.com/2008/03/13/sonic-weapon/
Doc
sez, he would hope the Oak Ridge model is smaller and more ergonomic than the
speaker driven mode shown. Perhaps its even piezoelectric based. Nine volts,
after all, is not a whole lot of energy.
September 1, 2009. © 2009 United Press
International, Inc.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/09/01/Inventor-develops-nonlethal-sonic-weapon/UPI-40411251830821/ .
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Los
Alamos Technology Strikes a Chord with Algal Biofuels — Award-winning acoustic focusing
technology will help create ‘green gold’.
An
award-winning Los Alamos National Laboratory sound-wave technology is helping
Solix Biofuels, Inc. optimize production of algae-based fuel in a
cost-effective, scalable, and environmentally benign fashion—paving the
way to lowering the carbon footprint of biofuel production.
Algae
innards contain a high concentration of lipids, or oils. These lipids can be
extracted by a relatively simple chemical process and concentrated into
“biocrude”—or “green gold”—an alternative to crude oil that can be
refined into biodiesel, gasoline, or even jet fuel.
Acoustic-focusing—the novel use of sound waves at the heart of the Los
Alamos Acoustic Flow Cytometer, a 2007 R&D100 Award-winning
technology—is being harnessed and commercialized in partnership with
Solix to harvest algae for fuel. The work is part of a cooperative research and
development agreement (CRADA) between the Laboratory and Solix.
In
order to turn algae into transportation fuel, the tiny plant-like organisms
first must be separated from their watery home and the growth medium used to
sustain them. Current methods rely on giant centrifuges to separate liquids
from algae solids. Centrifuges take a lot of power to operate, raising
production costs and increasing the process’ overall carbon use. Moreover,
standard fuel-conversion methods extract lipids from the algae using solvents
that are potentially hazardous to humans and the environment, and costly to
dispose of.
Thanks
to use of Los Alamos’s acoustic-focusing technology, the
algae-water-growth-medium mixture is subjected to ultrasonic fields that
concentrate the algal cells into a dense sludge. This combined separation and
concentration method uses hundreds of times less power than centrifuges. The
Lab’s lipid extraction and fractionation technique also avoids the need for
costly, hazardous solvents.
LANLToday
Los Alamos, New Mexico,
September 2, 2009
http://www.lanl.gov/scat/los_alamos_technology_strikes_a_chord_with_algal_biofuels_nr090209
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Unspoiled
Nature in Shadow of a Nuclear Site — Doc sez, this is where I’ve worked for the last 35 years.
THE
Hanford Reach National Monument in the arid steppe of south-central Washington
is a nature lover’s dream with the Columbia River flowing wide and free below
chalk-white cliffs, an abundance of birds, and populations of deer, elk and
coyotes. But there’s a twist: It surrounds the Hanford nuclear reservation, one
of the world’s largest environmental clean-up projects.
The
586-square-mile Hanford Site, administered by the United States Department of
Energy, played a major role in the building of the world’s first atomic bomb
and produced roughly two-thirds of the plutonium used in the nation’s nuclear
weapons arsenal before operations ceased in the 1980s. Today it’s home to nine
abandoned atomic reactors and tons of radioactive waste.
This
juxtaposition of spoiled and unspoiled land might bring to mind visions of
radioactive tumbleweeds. But locals hope the unusual pairing of World War II
and cold war history with the region’s natural beauty will play a bigger role
in a tourist trade that already lures visitors with its wineries, golf courses,
desert-like climate and ample sunshine.
In
recent years the Energy Department, which oversees the Hanford Site’s cleanup,
has opened the area to tours of sites like the B Reactor, the world’s first
production-scale nuclear reactor. And in 2000 the 195,000 acres of shrub steppe that surrounds the site
was declared a national monument. The gateways to the nuclear site, the national
monument and other attractions are the cities of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco,
which hug the Columbia south of Hanford. Here’s the Columbia River as seen
from Richland. It’s even prettier from the Hanford Reach, especially when the
ducklings are hatched.
The
B Reactor was designated a national historic landmark in 2008, and local groups
want to make it a museum. “We’re working with the National Park Service to
develop a thematic exhibit plan,” Michele Gerber, the Hanford Site historian,
said after the tour. Despite the site’s toxic legacy, sections open to the
public are deemed safe. Tickets for free weekday tours of the Hanford Site and
Saturday tours of the B Reactor only (both run on selected dates April through
September) generally sell out within hours after they are made available
online.
The
Hanford Reach National Monument, which on a map looks like a crab’s claw
clutching the Hanford Site, was left untouched because it was a buffer zone.
Recreational activities here include hunting, fishing, hiking and boating, but
the park’s Web site warns, “Visitors should be prepared for minimal signing and
primitive facilities.”
By Jeff Schlegel, The New York Times,
September 4, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/travel/escapes/04Amer.html?_r=3
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IBM
Plunges Into The 'Smart Grid For Water'
Even as billions of dollars are being spent around the world
to modernize the electricity grid, the systems to delivery fresh water are also
in desperate need of a 21st century upgrade. ... IBM and Intel will be forming
a working group to study how information and technology can be used to improve
water management.
IBM
is developing a portfolio of IT-related water management technologies, a
business that it estimates can total $20 billion within five years. At a water
conference next week, IBM and Intel will be forming a working group to study
how information and technology can be used to improve water management,
according to IBM. The goal is to sketch out the technical architecture required
to more efficiently use fresh water, only one percent of the available water on
Earth.
Water
systems even in developed countries like the U.S. are notoriously outdated,
with faulty pipes--some of them still made of wood--result in 25 percent to 45
percent lost water. That means high-tech approaches, such as using sensors to
gauge water quality, are a tough sell to cash-strapped municipalities, most of
which are more concerned with maintaining the basic infrastructure. IBM is
betting, though, that fresh water will have more value attached to it from the
public, governments, and corporations.
The
hard truth is that most of the countries in the developing world are outgrowing
the amount of water that is available to them," said Peter Williams, the
chief technology officer of IBM's Big Green Innovations program, who
representing IBM at a conference organized by the Water Innovations Alliance
industry association next week. http://www.waterinnovations.org/%5D "Certainly, it's the case that
water is the great sleeping crisis and it is most definitely starting to wake
up."
By Martin LaMonica, CNET News, Sepember 4, 2009
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10345122-54.html?tag=mncol
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Utility
Energy Storage No Longer Just Giant Batteries
If
you need more evidence that energy storage is much more than lithium ion
batteries, take a look at the latest smart-grid utility storage projects. The
Department of Energy on Tuesday announced that $620 million in stimulus funding
is going to 32 smart-grid programs, which will be coupled with another $1
billion in private money. A total of $770 million from government and industry
sources in the next few years will go to energy storage, giving a number of
storage technologies a dose of real-world experience.
Notable
in the list is the prominence of compressed-air energy storage and flow
batteries, two technologies rarely discussed just a few years ago. The advantage of underground compressed air storage is
that it can be cheaper than batteries and can store many hours worth of energy.
PG&E forecasts that its Kern County, Calif., project can deliver 300
megawatts of power for 10 hours, enough to supply tens of thousands of homes.
Also
in the mix are flywheels and using batteries for distributed energy storage in
communities. It's unlikely that all the DOE-aided projects will immediately
prove to be commercially viable. But storage has clearly emerged as a key
component in the vision of the smart grid. A number of start-ups are developing
technologies they hope can address a specific storage application or undercut
pumped hydro, considered the cheapest form of utility storage, on price. With
pumped hydro, water is pumped uphill and released at peak times to run a
generator. But its use is limited by geography.
By Martin LaMonica, CNET News, November 25, 2009
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10405069-54.html?tag=mncol;title
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Recyclable
Hydrogen Fuel Tanks
A
new process makes regenerating hydrogen fuel more efficient. One challenge in
using hydrogen as a transportation fuel--besides finding a clean, cheap source
of the fuel itself--is how to safely and reversibly store it without taking up
too much space. Hydrogen has a low density, so it's necessary to confine it
either under pressure, which presents a safety hazard, or chemically or in an
absorptive material.
Below
is an image of a fuel cell driven concept car created by GM called the Sequel
that can burn hydrogen, preferably from a low pressure, safe storage tank.
In
a chemical storage system, hydrogen is bonded to the molecules in a solid
material such as ammonia borane. The advantage of chemical storage is that
these materials are inert solids, and the hydrogen can be readily removed for
reaction in a fuel cell. But the materials under development for chemically
storing hydrogen have a major limitation: refueling them once they're spent
takes a large amount of energy. Now researchers have developed a series of
reactions for refueling the high-density hydrogen-storage material ammonia
borane at lower temperatures through a process that consumes much less energy.
The
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has set a goal of a hydrogen fuel-cell car that
can travel 300 miles on a single fuel tank using chemical hydrogen storage. The
cars would be taken to a center to exchange the spent tanks for fresh ones,
with the spent tanks regenerated at a plant.
The
capacity of a material to chemically store hydrogen is measured as the
percentage of its weight taken up by the element; in order to meet its goals,
the DOE benchmark for hydrogen-storage materials is 6 percent by weight by 2010
and 9 percent by 2015. "The good news about ammonia borane is it can hit
or surpass the volume and weight targets" set by the DOE, says Jamie
Holladay, a senior research engineer at the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory. Ammonia borane contains 19.6 percent hydrogen by weight. "The
challenge is regeneration of the spent fuel," he says.
"Once
you get the hydrogen out of the ammonia borane, you can't just pressurize it
with more hydrogen to regenerate the fuel," because this is too
energy-intensive, says John Gordon, a research chemist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico. In order to find out which reactions were likely to
work best without having to test hundreds on the bench, chemists at Los Alamos
collaborated with David Dixon, a professor of chemistry at the University of
Alabama, who developed algorithms to predict the energetics of the reactions.
The group then tested the most promising chemistries and found that using a tin
catalyst and regenerating the material in several steps required much less
energy than driving the reaction directly.
Of
course, a major problem remains before hydrogen fuel-cell cars become
practical:
developing improved methods for making hydrogen fuel in the first
place, a challenge other researchers are working on. Doc sez, of course they,
in the US, are avoiding nuclear energy.
By
Katherine Bourzac, Technology
Review, MIT, September 8, 2009.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23370/?a=f
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Renewable
Energy Plan Creates Rift with Environmentalists
The
morning heat hits triple digits as a whiptail lizard darts below a creosote
bush near Route 66. Gazing across the desert valley, power company executives,
environmentalists and federal land managers stand beneath a cloudless sky and
argue over the landscape.
PG&E
project manager Alice Harron says she is "comfortable" with the solar
power plant her utility wants to build on government land here along 4 miles of
the Mother Road that connected Chicago and Los Angeles long before the
interstate system.
David
Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy is not. Renewable energy projects such as
this one — which could power 224,000 homes — sound good in theory,
he says, but if they tear up pristine vistas, they're not "green."
President Obama wants a "clean-energy economy"
that relies on renewable sources such as solar and wind power instead of coal
and oil. He wants to put these new utilities on federally owned lands like this
stretch of the Mojave Desert, one of the sunniest places on Earth. The
administration wants to lead the way by taking advantage of its vast holdings,
which account for 20% of all land in the USA, mostly in the West.
That
idea is creating a rift among environmentalists, who favor renewable energy but
are at odds over where to produce it. Some are willing to compromise with
utility companies to build large power plants on remote federal lands to
accelerate the transition to clean energy.
Purists
are dead set against disturbing pristine landscapes. I guess the purist want
to keep using fossil fuel since they are against nuclear, don ‘t believe
hydropower is recyclable, and want to keep the land pristine (Doc).
Obama's
goal is to meet 25% of the nation's energy needs from renewable resources by
2025. Today, the figure is 11.1%, according to the Department of Energy.
As noted, one of the purist is Myers, who
worries that the government will industrialize the desert with acres of solar
mirrors, trampling treasured landscapes. Groups such as the Natural Resources
Defense Council (NRDC) counter that large, centralized projects are needed to
speed the shift to non-polluting energy. "It's hard, because many of us
have fought to protect the very lands" that could be affected, says
Johanna Wald of the NRDC.
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY, September 9, 2009
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/environment/2009-09-07-renewable_N.htm
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That’s all folks, more next month…
Perhaps I’ll get current.
Harry, aka doc_Babad
