A New Way To Refine Uranium

Australian scientists have come up with a way to refine uranium in a way that would conceivably halve production costs.

There are at present only two methods for sifting uranium atoms, or isotopes, to create the right mix. One, called diffusion, involves forcing uranium through filters. Being lighter, U-235 passes through more easily and is thus separated from its heavier counterpart. The second method, widely adopted in the 1970s, uses centrifuges to spin the heavier and lighter atoms apart.

Both, said Dr Goldsworthy, are "very crude. You have to repeat the process over and over," consuming enormous amounts of electricity. The spinning method requires "thousands and thousands of centrifuges".

The Lucas Heights team, working for Dr Goldsworthy's research company Silex (Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation), is the only one in the world developing a third technique that involves streaming uranium through lasers tuned to a frequency that only "sees" the U-235 atoms.

The lasers electrically charge the atoms, which become trapped in an electromagnetic field and drawn to a metal plate for collection. "It's absolutely cutting-edge technology, incredibly difficult to develop," Dr Goldsworthy said.

During the 1980s and '90s the US, France, Britain, Germany, South Africa and Japan attempted to develop laser-enrichment technology, but all failed. One US effort involving 500 scientists gave up after spending $2 billion.

"By world standards, we have worked on a shoestring budget," Dr Goldsworthy said, estimating the "more elegant and sophisticated" Australian concept at about $65 million.

Hat tip: Slashdot.

Or, They Could Just Make More Fuel-Efficient Cars, Part 2

GM wants you to buy their SUVs, and they want to pay for your gas for a year, or at least, that part of it above $1.99/gallon. I've seen these ads and lemme tell you — they're crazy. GM can't go into the toilet fast enough.

Canada Wants Out Of Kyoto Treaty

Well, duh.

One Fusion Reactor Problem Down, Only A Million Or So Left

I keed, I keed. New Scientist has an article about researchers who have discovered a way of keeping fusing plasma from bursting out and damaging the reactor walls.

Researchers at General Atomics, a company based in San Diego, California, US, discovered a simple way to prevent ELMs from occurring. By using a separate magnetic coil to induce small perturbations in the reactor's main magnetic field, they found they could bleed off enough of the plasma particles to prevent the ELMs from bursting out. The solution was tested at an experimental reactor based in San Diego called the DIII-D National Fusion Facility.

Now if they could only get to that pesky breakeven point...

Via Slashdot.

Bush Administration Official: Middle East Oil Supplies "Precarious" After 2008

Now, isn't that interesting:

Mr. Cheney was recently sent to Central Asia and other regions to coax allies to significantly increase supplies to stabilize U.S. gasoline prices for the summer. Administration sources said Mr. Cheney has run into significant difficulties as he has found that many of the potential suppliers have become committed to China.

"We're in a race with China and so far we're losing," an administration source familiar with Mr. Cheney's trip said.

...

They said Mr. Cheney's visit to Central Asia was based on the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Middle East oil supplies will become increasingly precarious after 2008.

I wonder why they chose 2008.

Or, They Could Just Make More Fuel-Efficient Cars

Via Green Car Congress, Ford and GM want to force California and New York to allow their hybrids in carpool lanes. Currently, carpool lanes are open in those states only to vehicles getting 45 MPG or higher — meaning Toyotas and Hondas. Both Ford and GM have hybrid SUVs that are ineligible under these states' laws.

JD Signs Off

It was nice knowing you. We need more of this kind of thing.

A Couple Good Points

The LP Blog has a couple good points to make on the current energy situation. First, Thomas Sowell asks whether thinking is obsolete in all the gas price hysteria:

The government collects far more in taxes on every gallon of gasoline than the oil companies collect in profits. If oil company profits are "obscene," as some politicians claim, are the government's taxes PG-13?

The very politicians who have piled tax after tax on gasoline over the years, and voted to prohibit oil drilling offshore or in Alaska, and who have made it impossible to build a single oil refinery in decades, are all over the television screens denouncing the oil companies. In other words, those who supply oil are being denounced and demonized by those who have been blocking the supply of oil.

And, they point us to this AP story in which the Hawaiian gas cap has come to a screeching halt:

"In a lot of people's minds, they thought the gas cap wasn't working," said Republican state Sen. Paul Whalen, a strong supporter of the price controls. "It was hard to generate lots of support for it because we're paying more than we ever were before."

Gas is particularly expensive in Hawaii because of high state taxes and because of the costs of transporting oil across the Pacific. Last fall, Hawaii became the only state to cap the cost of fuel to try to give some relief to motorists.

Yeah, those work so well. I was recently reading in the paper edition of the Economist that the price of gasoline would be better raised through government intervention — i.e., higher taxes. And these guys are supposed to be lowercase-l liberals?

Three From MIT Technology Review

A trio of articles from MIT Technology Review:

• First a piece about MIT's energy agenda:

  Satisfying a possible doubling of global energy demand while supplanting fossil fuels is "perhaps the greatest single challenge facing our nation and world in the 21st century," a Massachusetts Institute of Technology panel wrote today in a draft research strategy report for the institute.

• Second, an article about doubling world oil supplies.
• Finally, one about using microbes to make better biofuels, and ethanol in particular.

A Stupid Idea Shot Down

That $100 rebate? It's been cancelled.

Republicans denounced their own gas price rebate plan Tuesday, acknowledging that sending a $100 check to American taxpayers would do little to ease the pain of high prices or address their cause.

The quick backtracking — the Senate plan was announced with great fanfare just five days ago — reflected the discord among GOP lawmakers as they confronted the political perils of $3-a-gallon gasoline.

The rhetoric was unusually sharp for an intramural fight. At his weekly meeting with reporters, House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) called the rebate idea "insulting" to taxpayers.

"The really insulting part of this whole proposal is the fact that somebody is offering $100 to every American family over this. This is not going to solve the problem," he said. "I don't like the proposal. And over the weekend I heard back from my constituents. They thought it was stupid."

They must be less stupid than the morons who proposed it...

What Color Is The Sky In That Little World Of Yours, Mr. Wagoner?

The geniuses at GM claim the price of gasoline is temporarily high ($$), which has to amount to one of the most self-serving and delusional comments made in public by a corporate officer since the Enron bankruptcy hit.

"They are too high right now and they will come back down," Mr. Wagoner said of oil prices during a conference at the company's headquarters in Detroit that was broadcast over the Internet. He said consumer behavior isn't expected to be negatively impacted by current gas prices, which are averaging about $2.92 a gallon according to the American Automobile Association.

"We don't expect [oil] to get to a price range when it would affect behavior," Mr. Wagoner said. He said gasoline prices would conceivably need to be well in excess of $3 a gallon in order to significantly hurt consumers.

They wish! GM's TV ads have been for a couple years now laden with expensive, heavy, and gas-sucking SUVs; until they get the message that people aren't seeing the cars from them that they want to buy, GM's sales will take a pounding. Here's a hint: drop the SUV ads, and start touting your small, fuel-efficient vehicles. Do it now, or watch your company go into chapter 11.

A New Peak Oil Essay From Ron Bailey

Ron Bailey, Reason's science correspondant, has come out with another, slightly more concerned version of his piece on peak oil than his 2004 essay. Bailey dismisses the notion that peak oil production will be with us anytime soon, but he does think that politically-driven shortages could have an effect, one that will ultimately backfire on the perpetrators (read: Iran). That might have been true on the upside, but on the downside of the production peak...?

The Denial Continues

An amazing comment in the WSJ ($$) from Burnham Securities auto analyst David Healy:

"Perceptions are everything, and potential big-SUV buyers who last month were ready to shell out $40,000 if only they could get that new [Chevrolet] Tahoe, are now sitting home, watching a partly seasonal runup in gas prices, chewing their nails and worrying about Nigeria," Mr. Healy said.

Nevertheless, "drivers will eventually get used to the $3 sign at the pump and not miss the extra $12 a month it will take to keep the wheels rolling," he said.

Out. Of. His. Mind. GM vehicle sales: down 11%. Chrysler: down 8%. Ford: down 6.6%, but reporting the best month ever for its hybrid vehicles.

And Toyota, up 4.5%.

Nah, they won't miss that $12 a month... or more.

Bolivia Nationalizes Natural Gas Fields

"The looting by the foreign companies has ended", says El Presidente Evo Morales. Sure enough. The looting by the government has just begun.

Wow, Fancy That

"High Gas Prices Will Last Years, Bush Aides Say". No kidding.