Using Forest Waste For Electric Power Generation

According to this Texas A&M University bulletin, tree waste from forestry operations can be a possible fuel source for electricity generation. During lumber harvest, tree tops are frequently left behind to biodegrade, and sometimes shredded to accelerate that process.

According to one processor, about 12% of the volume of the trees brought to the factory is unusable, and is currently used to run the plant, though this only works out to a fraction of the energy needed to operate the facility. Presumably, the mass of the crowns amounts to a much greater volume.

Since the remains are important to the regrowth of the forest, renewing the soil is important, and the bulletin says that the key to any successful program involves leaving some crowns intact, as well as possibly returning ash to the site.

Used in combination with a gasification system, such a system could be very efficient; the gas turbine unit at the above link is estimated to be about 30% efficient, and if "waste" heat were utilized, I would be willing to bet it would be even greater (as the IGCC power plants the Engineer-Poet is so fond of). Interestingly enough, in World War II, even vehicles were propelled by gasified wood products in the UK, Germany, and Scandinavia when fuel shortages made petroleum hard to come by.

Another Sidebar Update

One I keep missing: Science Blog, which itself has an interesting three-year-old article about the Chinese re-using an old German experimental fusion reactor, the ASDEX tokamak. Not only that, but I note they have sidebar links to Matt Welch's fantastic Warblog, and his wife's emmanuelle.net blog, in impenetrable French and penetrable English. (Despite working with a mess of expats over the years, I still don't understand a lick of the language.)

Goldman Sachs: Oil Prices Set For "Super-Spike"

An analyst for Goldman Sachs says oil prices are set for a "super-spike" similar to those from the 1970's, with $105/bbl within sight, according to MSN. The bank said that $105 may actually be "conservative"; thanks to improved efficiency, petroleum usage, though decreased per capita, is now more pervasive (thank you, Jevon's Paradox!).

Goldman said that were it to assume gasoline spending needed to reach 1970s levels to destroy demand, its upside super-spike estimate would be $135 per barrel for New York crude.

"Perhaps the ultimate answer to high how oil prices need to go before demand destruction occurs is derived from knowing when American consumers will stop buying gas guzzling sport utility vehicles and instead seek fuel efficient alternatives.

"Based on our analysis of gasoline spending and the economy noted above, we estimate that U.S. gasoline prices may need to exceed $4 per gallon."

(All emphasis above mine.) When industry analysts say that demand destruction won't hit until Bush's "nightmare scenario", you wonder about the political implications. The Democrats, who I would bet on heavily to win the House in the 2006 midterm elections, will be the first to come out with demands to tap the strategic reserve, but this will ultimately prove futile.

Update: Sure enough, crude raced up $2/bbl on the news of the report, and also on eroding gasoline stockpiles:

The U.S. government reported Wednesday that U.S. gasoline supplies fell 2.9 million barrels to 214.4 million barrels last week, the fourth decline in a row ahead of summer when consumption peaks.

U.S. gasoline demand has been running 2 percent higher than last year in the past four weeks, despite record prices at the pump, making a 6.3 percent inventory surplus versus last year less comforting than it would appear.

The Depletion Shell Game

Of course, the title doesn't pun at Shell's lone expense; the real problem is that over time, individual companies will experience peak oil as well, and according to this Salon article, researchers at energy analyst John S. Herold, Inc. have determined individual peaks for the major oil companies:

Herold believes that the French oil company, Total S.A., will reach its peak production in 2007. Herold expects 2008 to be critical, with Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., BP, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and the Italian producer, Eni S.p.A., all hitting their peaks. In 2009, Herold expects ChevronTexaco Corp. to peak. In Herold's view, each of the world's seven largest publicly traded oil companies will begin seeing production declines within the next 48 months or so.

Naturally, the oil companies themselves are rather tightlipped about this, with David J. O'Reilly, Chevron/Texaco CEO and chairman, issuing a "no comment", and similar statements coming from Royal Dutch/Shell spokesmen. Unlike the Hubbert modelers at ASPO, Herold gets its data from a purely public data source: the SEC.

Herold's owner and CEO, Art Smith, is a believer in Hubbert's work. Smith and his fellow analysts at Herold have been building their peak production databases since 1996. About 10 months ago, Herold began publishing what it calls "strategic evaluations" of specific companies, which include graphics showing when that company will reach its peak production. Herold does not do geologic analysis. Instead, its analysts mine the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It also looks at the oil properties that the company has acquired or sold, along with new projects being drilled, and older oil fields in the company's portfolio. "We look at this data, put it into a financial model, and start asking questions," says Herold analyst Gordon.

The article also looks back to an earlier Salon article about neocons becoming more energy-aware, and notes W "keeps his head up his tailpipe". True.

Thanks to Flying Talking Donkey for the link.

YANB: FuturePundit

I know, it must be getting tiresome reading about my discovery of all these blogs, but today marks the addition of FuturePundit to the sidebar. Thanks to the sidebar counter, I found out about a link to this blog in the comments of this story about the late ramp-up in nuclear construction around the world, and in particular, in Taiwan. (Thank you, Engineer-Poet!) The discussion of the pros and cons of nuclear is very good and interesting reading. In particular, I agree with James of Alternative Energy Blog when he says

I think both sides of the debate on nuclear power need to come up with better data.

Meanwhile I remain sitting firmly on the fence on this issue.

(Unfortunately, the link James provides to earthtrack.net for a nuclear subsidy PowerPoint presentation doesn't work.) The distortion of actual costs is a subject often harped upon at Knowledge Problem, and justifiably so.

Drought Exacerbates Western Electricity Shortages

The Los Angeles Times reports that a drought afflicting the Pacific northwest has left reservoirs at low levels, threatening the amount of hydropower available for peak summer usage. Reservoir levels are down 30% from normal; generation and transmission facilities have also failed to keep up with consumption growth, which is mainly occurring in the south. As a result, Southern California will have inadequate supplies if temperatures rise very far.

The Cal ISO 2005 summer report (PDF) adds that the state has increased its generating capacity by 8,674 MW, but this is overall of little use because of the shortage of transmission facilities. In 2004, "there were several days where over 1,500 MW of generation was stranded ... due to transmission constraints." In the worst case "1-in-10" scenario (hottest year in ten), demand will outstrip capacity as much as 4.4%, or 804 MW -- about one medium-sized coal-fired power plant.

Knowledge Problem has more on this; in particular, I dig Lynne's comment that

I love that [Daniel Weintraub in the Sacramento Bee] used the word "dynamic" to describe the retail choice rate structure, and that he highlights the contrast with static, status-quo-focused politicians and regulators who think they are protecting consumers by keeping them in the 20th century and relying on information from meters that are vintage 1920s technology.

This is an ongoing problem of rates that don't reflect the underlying capital costs of electricity and energy usage generally.

UI Researcher Builds Membraneless, All-Liquid Fuel Cell

A little older than usual, I let this New Scientist article pass me by without commenting on it last week. University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign researcher Paul Kenis has discovered an ingenious method for reducing the cost of fuel cell membranes: eliminating them altogether. His fuel cell is the first alkaline unit ever.

His system exploits a phenomenon known as "laminar flow", where tiny streams of liquid become so viscous they do not mix when squeezed past one another.

"The concept of a membraneless fuel cell is a great idea, because between 20% and 40% of the cost of a fuel cell is the membrane," says chemist Shelley Minteer at the University of St Louis in Missouri, US.

...

In the past, fuel cells have been made up of two chambers, one housing the liquid fuel that produces protons and supplies electrons to the anode, the other containing an oxygen-water mixture, which absorbs electrons.

The polymer membrane separating the chambers is punctured by tiny pores that allow protons through but are small enough to stop the larger methanol and oxygen molecules from diffusing across.

The problem is that using these membranes means that all fuel cells must be based on the exchange of acidic protons. Because alkaline hydroxide ions are much bigger than protons, there are no membranes that can allow the hydroxide ions through without also causing mixing between the two chambers, explains Kenis. "The membrane limits the chemistry of the fuel cell," he says. But he insists that alkaline fuel cells are nevertheless more efficient.

So he decided to do away with the membrane altogether. Kenis realised that if he shrank the chambers down to about 0.25 millimetres and ensured that the liquids were always moving, the two could flow past each other and would not mix, even with no separating a membrane. And they would still allow the diffusion of protons or hydroxide ions from one side of the cell to the other.

The 3 cm X 3 cm X 0.1 mm unit he has built already is powering a small fan, though it is not as efficient as other existing fuel cells. Kenis says the problem is caused by a lack of dissolved oxygen in water. He claims to have a solution for this, but won't divulge it until his patent is completed.

Thank Yous

And a big thank you to Lynne at Knowledge Problem, who featured Peak Oil Optimist in a review post of worthwhile blogs, as well as adding me to their sidebar. If this is your first time poking around here, welcome.

Toshiba Li-Ion Battery Recharges In A Minute

A new Toshiba lithium-ion battery recharges to 80% of capacity in just a minute, according to InformationWeek. Current generation Li-Ion batteries require one to four hours to achieve this level of recharge. The battery loses only a percent of storage capacity after 1,000 cycles.

According to Toshiba, the secret's in the negative electrode. "Nano-particles prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging," said Toshiba in a statement. "The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode."

Obviously, such batteries could have uses in hybrid vehicle systems as well.

Tidally, Man, Tidally

There is sometimes a temptation to say that those of us not on the dark side of this discussion are all reading the same source material. Energy Outlook passes on an MIT Technology Review article that I got in their daily mail. Tapping tidal power, these companies claim that huge amounts of energy in the form of oceanic waves are available:

According to a report released in January, 2005, the total wave power along the coastlines of the U.S. is approximately 2,100 terrawatt hours per year, nearly as much as all of the electricity produced by coal and roughly 10 times the total energy produced by all of the country's hydroelectric plants.

Wave energy systems can capture the same amount of energy using smaller and less expensive equipment than wind or solar systems, according to Roger Bedard of EPRI, who authored the study.

The story goes on to say that the obstacle to harvesting this energy is the federal government:

"Very simply, new energy sources have always been funded by the federal government," Bedard says. However, "(t)he Department of Energy does not have an ocean energy program."

There are two problems with this:

1. just because the feds have "always" done so doesn't mean they have to do so in the future, and
2. as I pointed out earlier, the great problem with using other people's money is that there's little incentive to use it productively and economically.

What is more necessary is that the government get out of the way of such projects. The mind-numbing amount of permitting required to get any energy project running is staggering, and even more so when trying to start one that involves the ocean.

Administrivia: User Counts

Is it because I've got the first entry in the Peak Oil Webring or my relatively cheery title that I have the most views of any single blog in the Ring? Whatever, I've put a stat counter on the sidebar. Bear in mind that the number reported by the Webring counter only comprises the time since I added the Javascript to the sidebar, no more than a month, really.

Lutz: Nutz To Naysayers

Bob Lutz of GM rebuts his plan's skeptics:

We did not cancel the Zeta plans to save money, or to divert funds elsewhere that would've been used for product development.

We are simply reallocating resources (human and financial) to pull some other programs ahead and get other vehicles to market sooner. The press speculates this means we're doing it to get our next-generation large SUVs and pickups out sooner. You could see how one might reasonably come to such a conclusion.

Autoguy forwards a Detroit News article by Daniel Howes excoriating GM for their weak product design, high costs, and unjustifiable assumptions about volume making up for basic cost escalation. Jerry Flint in Forbes goes further, blaming the Zeta's fate on GM's recent $2 billion divorce settlement with Fiat.

But all this is just so much rearranging of deck chairs; the big issue remains oil dependency. In a January post on GM Fastlane Blog, Powertrain Group Vice President Tom Stephens "explodes" some "myths" about GM's lagging position by pointing out the large number of GM models with high fuel economy. However, that's hardly an answer when the World Resources Institute estimated that only 42% of GM's vehicles will qualify under Phase I of the new Chinese fuel economy law slated to go into force in 2005/2006 (PDF document). Worse, the WRI suggests GM will need to make very expensive modifications of their production lines to achieve the reductions required by law. Undoubtedly, Stephens relies on product brand line duplication to achieve the modest results he refers to, but the overall problem remains: GM isn't reading the big fat signs of an impending oil crisis, and their big-engined cars will be the cinderblock pulling their sales to the bottom of the sea.

GM Commits Hara-Kiri

Two items from Autoguy: on the heels of news that GM's sales are down, way down, comes this insane redirection from Bob Lutz, who has cancelled the company's RWD offering (slated for 2008), and accelerated SUV and heavy truck production. They have bet heavily on the wrong horse; this could be the largest industrial bankruptcy since the New York Central.

Update 3/23: Reuters reports that GM is now publicly discussing killing a brand, with Pontiac and Buick as the two likely candidates.

The Bigger Can Of Worms: Hockey Stick Redux

A while ago, I pointed out a fairly old piece by Richard Muller at UC Berkeley, itself relaying research by McKitrick and McIntyre poking holes in the Michael Mann work forecasting general global warming and placing anthropogenic CO₂ generation as the cause thereof. Via Slashdot, in this latest go-round, M&M have a slightly different beef with Mann; namely, that he hasn't published the full source of his model and in fact refuses to do so.

This is no insignificant issue. We need a clear idea that the science underlying any forecasting methodology is sound, and if that methodology is opaque, it becomes little more than orthodoxy.

Those wishing to label me a "nut" would be reminded at this time that, in certain circles, Peak Oil is also just a "theory". Whether McKitrick and McIntyre are right or wrong is largely immaterial here; the important thing is the process used to determine whether Mann's hypothesis is correct or not. Spreading ad hominems strikes me as the wrong way to go about this.

The Government Responds

In a week where the government has busied itself with shameless grandstanding on steroids and even more of the same to keep alive a permanently vegetative woman, Terry Schiavo, despite her husband's wishes, we find at least one member of Congress awake. Thanks to Green Car Congress for the link to Rep. Bartlett's testimony before the House on Peak Oil. It's not enough -- not nearly enough -- but it's a start.

Drudge today ran a flash report about Bush having his advisors investigate the possible results of a $4/gal "nightmare scenario"; given these things have a tendency to vanish after a day or two, I quote this in full:

President Bush's inner circle has become preoccupied with soaring gas prices and its toll on the economy, a well-placed White House source said over the weekend.

Bush has quietly asked for a review of any and all economic fallout on the nation if gas prices continuing racing up and over the psychological line of $3 a gallon, as they have in recent weeks in some locations, the source explains.

Bush's top economic advisers have conveyed to the president that a "nightmare" scenario of $4 a gallon is extremely unlikely in the short term.

"The seasonal run-up of gas prices has been tough this year, but like every year in the past two decades, we expect we will will see some easing," the source claims from Washington.

Developing...

For my part, I expect gasoline prices to exceed $4 this summer in places, the results of which will be severe enough to turn Republicans from office en mass in the midterm elections. Whether that will result in better policies is another matter, because the first thing the Outs are likely to promise on their way to becoming Ins is -- lower gasoline prices. Never mind that's not the principle issue.

CERI: More Gas Out There

Canadian gas production is far from peaking, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute. Vello Kuuskraa, president of the Advanced Resources International Inc. (ARII), said that in the short term the U.S. has no choice but to accellerate construction of an Alaskan gas pipeline, and step up LNG imports. But that's not to say that there isn't more gas out there:

Kuuskraa said the US is not running out of natural gas, only shallow and easy-to-find-and-produce gas. The speaker said there are massive volumes of gas that still remain locked in domestic reservoirs, primarily tight gas sands, gas shales, and coalbed methane basins. In addition, he said, deep gas resources, onshore and offshore, remain undeveloped.

Kuuskraa said 8 of the top 12 gas fields in the US are now unconventional fields. He said more-advanced knowledge and improved technology are increasing recovery rates from unconventional gas reserves. Intensive drilling for coalbed methane (CBM) projects produce much higher recovery rates than traditional well spacing.

"Rumors of a terminal decline in gas production have been greatly exaggerated," the speaker concluded.

But, despite this optimism, the report noted that "a trend of increasing F&D costs, that, if unchecked, threatens to choke off reinvestment and production replacement in the [Western Canada Sedimentary Basin]". Could it be that EROEI is going negative in that area?

India Insulates Its Consumers From Oil Price Hikes

This Business Standard editorial notes that the petroleum industry in India is still partly run by the government, and has to date not passed on price hikes for those four products whose prices it regulates. Obviously that cannot continue, but it points out a significant problem facing both China and India: both have much deeper penetration of their governments into their local energy markets. Both countries will have to pay the world price for oil ultimately; markets can't be legislated away. Local subsidies mask inefficiency, and those will eventually get shaken out, though it may be more painful if they wait rather than taking steps now.

A Different Understanding Of China's Taiwanese Intentions

Reading this piece at LewRockwell.com by Chalmers Johnson (with a preface by Tom Engelhardt), one gets the impression that China and Taiwan want a mutual reconciliation, but China wishes it to happen sooner rather than later, and isn't afraid to do some saber-rattling along the way. Mostly, I present this as a different view of China's ultimate aims in the western Pacific, focusing particularly on one paragraph in particular. First, the authors assert that weak U.S. comprehension of China is further eroded by a Bush administration about to launch into hostilities:

The Bush administration is unwisely threatening China by urging Japan to rearm and by promising Taiwan that, should China use force to prevent a Taiwanese declaration of independence, the U.S. will go to war on its behalf. It is hard to imagine more shortsighted, irresponsible policies, but in light of the Bush administration's Alice-in-Wonderland war in Iraq, the acute anti-Americanism it has generated globally, and the politicization of America's intelligence services, it seems possible that the U.S. and Japan might actually precipitate a war with China over Taiwan.

The authors predict that, absent U.S. and Japanese intercession, Taiwan and China would likely integrate in "a kind of looser version of a Chinese Quebec under nominal central government control but maintaining separate institutions, laws, and customs." How this would happen at mainland gunpoint Johnson doesn't say, but it represents a kind of preciousness one sees in libertarian circles when dealing with matters such as open borders and international free trade, where canards of all sorts are admitted.

BBC: Iraq War Planned Before Bush Took Office

BBC's Newsnight program has leveled serious charges against the Bush administration. Based on testimony from one Falah Aljibury who claims to have attended them, the administration held secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East regarding the disposition of Iraq's oil prior to Bush being sworn in in 2001. In the meetings, two groups struggled for power: the oil companies, and the neoconservatives in the White House. The neoconservatives favored a selloff of Iraqi oil assets, while the oil industry, fearing a shutout from the Iraqi assets, wanted to keep Iraqi oil in state hands. Ultimately the oil industry won. If true, these are serious charges.

The Malthusian Book Of Revelations

The fatuous, self-consciously named How To Save The World takes a big step away from that in corking the U.N.'s population growth estimates. Key to this grim view is his notion that

The entire basis for the projection that global population will peak at 9.5 billion and then level off is based on the assumption that this recent anomaly -- families having 0.5 children fewer each than they want [emphasis mine] -- will continue as a global phenomenon for the rest of the century and beyond.

No. No, it's not. It's not that people have been prevented from doing so (though that is true in China), but that they have decided to do so. Just as Voltaire observed that, if there were no God, man would have invented one, so with the Malthusians: as soon as somebody shows that there isn't an apocalypse at the end of the road, one of their number has to invent one.

The Attitude Of The Knife

Over at Green Car Congress, the authors note that Washington state appears poised to pass California's emission standards without joining the latter in greenhouse gas emissions restrictions. Given the circumstances of oil production, I have to wonder whether California's greenhouse gas emission laws are a good thing in the long term. The problem I foresee is that by passing such a law, it potentially cuts off valuable renewable solutions on the supply side. That is, assume the problem of greenhouse gases is tackled not from the vehicle side with fuel cell vehicles or electric cars, but from the fuel side. For instance, imagine 100% biodiesel (B100), cellulosic ethanol, or some similar carbon-recycling fuel scheme becomes feasible. Once the looming energy crisis makes it clear to everyone fossil fuels are limited, state mandates will lose their status as a driving force -- pardon the pun -- behind a race to renewables as the market embraces cheaper solutions. But by forcing Californians down the path of hydrogen-fueled cars, laws such as this may delay or harm other just-as-good or even better solutions to the problem of mobility.

This summarizes much that is wrong and incomplete with using the state to force energy solutions in place. The attitude of the knife: because it is cut off here, it is complete. But such thinking was what got us into this mess, with venal rent-seeking behavior by oil companies, and endless government intervention and manipulation of energy markets designed to force a solution that, in the long run, is much worse. This is a theme that resonates with Lynne Kiesling at Knowledge Problem. After reading the GAO report on energy use in the near future, she observed the pervasive state manipulation of energy markets has caused problems often misdescribed as "market failure":

In most dimensions of energy consumption, we do not send or receive accurate price signals. Transparent communication of the true value of the energy we consume is constantly subverted by regulation, by taxation, by subsidy, and by the relentless march of rent-seeking activity on all sides of all energy industries. This combination of interventions and subversions is typically draped in the cloak of "the public interest". But that cloak is actually the emperor's new clothes, inside which is a core of using political processes to achieve private benefits by sabotaging market processes.

Most primitively, the "progressives" frequently note that the cost of military adventures ought to be tallied into the price of oil, and to some degree, they're right. Before passing even more laws, and forcing yet another series of "solutions" likely to be just another sop to one special interest group or another, the most valuable thing that governments could do is to stop passing laws and let individuals sort things out on their own.

The Delicate Russian/Chinese Dance

For the Russians, looking across their Asiatic border at China can't be a pleasant thought. China outnumbers them, and that circumstance will get worse as Russian fecundity rates have fallen below replacement. This creates serious instability problems with the country's vast eastern Asian territory. For one thing, the Russians have announced a sea terminal for their new Pacific-facing oil export pipeline, favoring Japan and thwarting Chinese wishes for an overland route terminating in China. Such a route would give the Chinese control over the oil "in case hostilities break out".

For China, "hostilities" begin with the "renegade province" of Taiwan. China has long sought reunification of the erstwhile Formosa. Now, the Chinese government recently passed a law authorizing an attack on that island country should the duly elected representatives of the people there decide against communism. This is the most ominous of a series of broader moves that includes the development of a blue-water navy. China's economic development, in the eyes of those in power in Beijing, goes hand in hand with military might, and the generalissimos there plan on using it. These are no idle threats; coming from communists used to brute force, these should speak volumes about Chinese intentions. Like the Nazis in mid-1930's Europe, the Chinese appear to be arming for a large-scale conflict while the world around them placates or ignores them.

In the face of this, the Russians play a delicate game. They can't openly provoke the Chinese, but neither can they allow themselves to be pushed around. As the recipients of much Chinese spending, they play the role of seller, but of a very special product: energy, and in particular oil. So long as the Russian oil pipeline to the east is incomplete, its final destination could change at any moment. Both the Chinese and the Russians know this. Further, the geographically distributed nature of Russian oilfields makes it difficult for the Chinese to take Russia's oil by force. Nonetheless, the Russians cannot dismiss the possibility of Chinese invasion at some point.

Neither can the Japanese, the Koreans, and especially the Taiwanese.

News that Russian forces have changed plans in a joint military exercise with China to practice an attack on Taiwan is not so surprising. For now, the Russians can play along to get along, but one wonders: in the buildup to Munich, had Czechoslovakia, Britain, and France all stood up to Nazi militarism in 1937, Hitler would have meekly scurried from power and into a Bavarian jail. The Chinese, with their vast resources and population, cannot be so ignored. But I forget. The Russians signed a pact with Hitler. They are willing be fooled, apparently, a second time by a different power whose appetites are unlikely to stop at "renegade" provinces, so long as the check comes in the mail Monday.

Chinese Puzzle

As oil flirts with the $55/bbl level again, and as the world's banks slowly abandon the dollar as their preferred reserve currency, the assumption among certain writers has been that this is all downside for the United States and upside for her competitors in Asia. The point of a declining currency, some say, is that it forces declines in U.S. imports. But, goes this logic, with China bolted to the dollar, the principle cause of the U.S. trade deficit remains unaffected by this.

But China doesn't get off scot-free in this. With a dollar in decline, the yuan also needs to take a beating. The Chinese have really only two choices in the management of the current accounts deficit, neither of them good: they can continue to finance the trade deficit by buying Treasuries, or they can unshackle the yuan and let their cost competitiveness evaporate. With the former, they risk inflation of energy prices, which are still dollar-denominated. This is a double- or quadruple-whammy for China, because its industries are far less efficient than those of the industrialized West.

The Chinese ultimately have to get a return on their income stream, something low-interest Treasuries aren't likely to provide. With a free-floating yuan, they risk social and political turmoil as Chinese wages suddenly increase relative to the rest of the industrialized world. Neither outcome is especially good for China in the short term, but China will fight floating the yuan. Ultimately it may not be possible for them to avoid it.

Suncor Applies For Expansion Operating Permit

Suncor, a Canadian energy firm engaged in oil sands extraction, has plans to expand its operations with a C$5.9 billion (US $4.89 billion) upgrade of its Alberta facilities to process extra-heavy crude and turn it into synthetic oil. The upgrade will depend on the price of steel, which is also rising. Perhaps of greater interest, the company has applied to gasify and burn petroleum coke instead of natural gas, freeing that essential commodity for other activities and making the oil sands operations more self-sustaining. When completed (construction is slated to start in 2007, and start operations in 2010), the plant will generate 550,000 barrels of synthetic crude a day.

The company's press release at their website suggests the plant won't be in full operation until 2012. In addition to further mining expansion, the company also plans to pursue carbon dioxide capture and sequestration as part of their operations.

A Thought On The Putterman Refutation

A thought-in-the-shower regarding the refutation Seth Putterman assembled for the BBC: did he check the frequencies his setup issued prior to looking for radiation bursts? That is, was his detector looking in the wrong piece of spectrum?

India In Talks To Join ITER

India now is in talks to join the ITER non-effort, according to New Karala. Whether India could financially support such a project in addition to their other government-funded efforts in science in technology is an open question, but this could be the pebble that got the landslide started.

Another Blog: The Capital Spectator

Thanks to Knowledge Problem for pointing out this interesting blog on "money, oil, economics, and the search for the bottom line": The Capital Spectator. To the sidebar!

Gas Guzzling Hybrids

It's one thing to provide actual efficiency improvements; it's another to provide a band-aid when a tourniquet is needed. Such is the case with this MIT Technology Review article about changes in hybrid SUV drivetrains. The GM-Daimler transmission featured adds a new dimension to the vehicle's operation by applying torque through a conventional gearbox at highway speeds. The overall system is more efficient than current engineering practice, but the difference between a 15 MPG vehicle and a 20 MPG vehicle is negligible. What's needed are 40 MPG vehicles, but those don't come without other kinds of compromises.

Speaking Of Frauds: Abiotic Oil

Here we go again with abiotic oil, this time with Larry Cathles at Cornell taking up the flag of this, um, extraordinary theory. I expect this is going to get a lot of press in the near future, so we can start by dispensing with it now; if it were true, why aren't the oil companies using Gold's ideas as a starting point for actual exploration? Richard Heinberg's dismissal is as thorough a job as you could ask for, and without the name-calling that seems to happen elsewhere.

EU To Start ITER Alone By Year's End -- Unless...

EU to Japan: We'll start without you even if you don't join in and pay us.
Japan to EU:

A Taleyarkhan Skeptic Makes His Case

Sonofusion researcher Seth Putterman, a longtime researcher into acoustic cavitation and an early pioneer of sonofusion work himself, counts himself among the skeptics of Rusi Taleyarkhan's work. Putterman ran an experiment for the BBC to test whether Taleyarkhan's most recent claims made sense:

Working from the instructions set out in Rusi Taleyarkhan's paper, it assembled the same key scientific conditions necessary to create nuclear fusion from sonoluminescence.

But to see if it could find fusion, we measured the neutrons and the flashes of light simultaneously with nanosecond accuracy, something that had never been done before.

Recording data nanosecond by nanosecond, Seth Putterman did not find a single neutron close enough to a flash of light for it to be considered the result of nuclear fusion. So the conclusion was negative.

Unfortunately, it looks like Taleyarkhan has a lot of explaining left to do, and we're no better off than we were two years ago, or ten.

Why Sonofusion Could Work

In New Scientist today (actually, dated 5 March, but who's counting?), this piece on the actual temperature inside collapsing bubbles undergoing cavitation. The problem many physicists had with sonofusion is the widespread view that individual cavitating bubbles had temperatures around 10,000 kelvin, far too low to support nuclear fusion. By contrast, the core of the sun is much hotter -- around 10M kelvin.

But the 10k kelvin figure may be misleading. Measurements of the sun's surface show it to be 7k kelvin, much lower than the temperature at the core. According to David Flannigan and Ken Suslick at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, spectra from bubbles collapsing in a sulphuric acid solution yielded light signatures from "exotic ions" such as positively charged oxygen that can only exist at temperatures of 200,000 kelvin. "Crum believes that, like the sun, the bubbles may hide even higher temperatures. 'So maybe [bubble] fusion is technically possible,' he says." Good news.

Update, 5/5: Ken Suslick, in PhysicsWeb:

"Our results are in such a different set of experimental parameters that they can neither confirm or deny Taleyarkhan’s claims to fusion," Suslick told PhysicsWeb. "A plasma is a prerequisite but certainly not a sufficient condition for fusion."

The Illinois scientists now plan to optimise cavitation and explore the conditions generated during bubble collapse. "Is inertial confinement fusion possible in a collapsing bubble? I think the verdict is still out," says Suslick. "The underlying physics is solid - it is simply a question of whether the collapse can generate a shockwave that is sufficiently intense and remains spherical long enough."

Another ITERation Of Delay

I didn't write anything about it at the time, but the sad non-news of Japanese rejection of the European ITER siting (dated February 2) certainly causes me to wonder whether anyone really comprehends just how much the world is going to need fusion in the coming years and months. Briefly, the ITER fusion research reactor needs to go somewhere, and there are two candidate sites chosen for it: Cadarache, France, and Rokkasho-mura, Japan; wrangling over the two sites has gone on now for over two years. The fighting is now so intractable that both the European and American/Japanese sides have contingency plans to proceed alone (see entries dated Feb. 11, 2005, and Nov. 26, 2004).

The ongoing delays with ITER show in stark relief the problems with government funded science: the apparent politicization that so often goes along with it. The official line from Condoleeza Rice is that Jack Marburger, Science Advisor to the President, claims Japan as the best site for ITER on technical grounds. However, we may cite cases where the Bush administration has been all too happy to step on scientific advice when it conflicts with political interests. Examples of this include refusing to pay for expenses to a conference on suicide prevention unless the title of the conference stripped the words "gay", "lesbian", "bisexual", and "transgender"; scientists pressured to change study conclusions when they don't align with administration policies; and distortion of results and "wide-ranging [efforts] ... to prevent the appearance of advice that might run counter to the administration's political agenda". So French charges that the US favors a Japanese site for ITER as retaliation for France's rejection of the Iraq war are hardly farfetched.

The other problem with government funding is that ultimately it is dependent on political will, which can defocus economy, a necessary consideration for commercialization. For that reason alone, ITER and its successors may never get off the ground, and it may be that acoustic inertial containment fusion, simply from the low cost of the materials involved, wins the day.