The Energy Thread

[Mormon Red Death]

I don't' recall if I posted in this thread or another, but 'spent' nuclear fuel is only ~3% converted from useful atoms to uncontrollable elements.

Terrapower and other companies (Electricitie de France) take the rods, cut the to release the pellets, crush and process the pellets with a simple acid wash, and seperate the elements to remove the 'bad' elements (plutonium, polonium, etc) which are separated out for storage. The remaining 97% of the material is reconstituted into 'mixed fuel' rods and can be tailored for specific reactors. The reconstituted 'mixed fuel' rods are then sent out to fuel a plant for several more years.

Keep in mind, one ton of uranium will generate as much energy as 16,000 tons of coal or 80k barrels of oil. But the process of making energy from that one ton of uranium truly 'converts' only about 60 pounds of uranium, it doesn't change its state as burning coal or oil will. Thus with the addition of 60 pounds of fresh uranium at the end of the cycle, the ton of uranium will continue on producing power indefinitely.

One more thing: a ton of uranium is a cube a bit over 14 inches on a side.

That we don't have a thriving nuclear fuel reprocessing industry in the US is a national shame. The entire process was invented in the US between the 30s and 50s at UC Berkley, U Chicago, UCLA, and a few other research institutions. We invented it, then essentially abandoned it, so we are now forced to store the spent rods. Too bad we didn't start reprocessing the spent fuel on a large scale 50 years ago; we wouldn't have to worry about storing them forever at Yucca Mountain.

The podcast I listened to mentioned a couple reasons why nuclear was abandoned

1) 3 mile island accident (even though not 1 person was killed) happend like within 3 days of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome"]The China Syndrome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

2) The earthquake in Japan this year where the Nuke plants were suffiiciently protected.

[YOhio]

Working on a DARPA contract, SRI International developed a non-Fischer Tropsch CTL process that neither consumes water or generates CO2. The process has only been bench-scale tested.

[Katy Lied]

Alternative Energy Companies who benefitted from green loans from the US Stimulus government package, and now have declared bankruptcy:

1. Solyndra (Solar Panel Maker); government funds: $535 Million in loan guarantees.
(By the way, a quote from a Solyndra employee:

While we were out there, while we were building it – cause it is a half a billion dollar plant – everyone already knew that China had developed a more inexpensive way to manufacture these solar panels. Everyone knew that the plant wouldn’t work. But they still did it. They still built it.

2. Beacon Power Corp (Energy Storage); government funds: $40 Million in guaranteed loan.

3. Evergreen Energy (Alternative Fuel Products- K-Fuel)

4. Ener1 (Electric Vehicle Batteries); $118M grant.

6. SpectraWatt

7. Eastern Energy

Serious Financial Difficulties

1. Amonix (Solar Panel Maker) (has cut 2/3 of workforce)
2. Nevada Geothermal Power (received $98.5 million in loan guarantees- thank you Harry Reid- multiple potential defaults in SEC filings)
3. First Solar (the biggest S&P loser in 2011) $4.7 billion in loan guarantees

Mr. Morici told CBS that Secretary of Energy Steven Chu lies at the heart of the problem:
Tasking a Nobel Prize mathematician [Chu] to make investments for the U.S. government is like asking the manager of the New York Yankees to be the general in charge of America’s troops in Afghanistan. It’s that absurd.
Unmentioned in the report was the fact that the men Mr. Obama put in charge of deciding which companies would receive the Department of Energy’s loans and grants were not scientists at all; rather, they were instead Mr. Obama’s top fundraisers, such as Steve Spinner who was on the Obama campaign’s National Finance Committee and was a bundler himself.
Perhaps that explains why the Department of Energy refused CBS News’s interview request.

[Green Monstah]

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/02/17/i...federal-lands/

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he wants to increase onshore royalty payments to be on part with offshore (roughly 50% increase) for wells drilled on federal leases. I don't know precisely how much hydrocarbons are produced from onshore federal leases, but this doesn't seem like a wise political move for the Obama administration, with crude at a 12-month high and gas prices approaching $4/gallon.

[YOhio]

[YOUTUBE]87TGW9eLAtU[/YOUTUBE]

[Katy Lied]

The US now has more gas than Saudi Arabia has oil. Too bad the efficiencies are not equivalent. The US has a 100 year supply.

http://www.energybiz.com/article/12/...gas-revolution

[Uncle Ted]

Let's forget all this green energy crap... let's talk fusion!

The largest laser in the world was turned on for a fraction of a second last week -- and it unleashed the most powerful laser blast in history.

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) -- a laser test facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. -- turned on its 192 laser beams for a brief instant on March 15, unleashing a record-setting 1.875-megajoule blast into a target chamber.

[...]

"This event marks a key milestone in the National Ignition Campaign’s drive toward fusion ignition,” Moses said.

In fission, atoms are split and the massive energy released is captured. The NIF aims for fusion, the ongoing energy process in the sun and other stars where hydrogen and helium nuclei are continually fusing and releasing enormous amounts of energy. In the ignition facility, beams of light converge on pellets of hydrogen isotopes to create a similar, though controlled, micro-explosion.

As the beams move through a series of amplifiers, their energy increases exponentially. From beginning to end, the beams' total energy grows from one-billionth of a joule to a potential high of four million joules, NIF said -- a factor of more than a quadrillion.

And it all happens in about five millionths of a second.

Because the laser is on for the merest fraction of a second, it costs little to operate -- between $5 and $20 per blast, said spokeswoman Lynda Seaver. But the potential is enormous.

NIF’s managers hope by the end of the year to reach a break-even point, where the energy released is equal to if not greater than the energy that went into the blast.

[il Padrino Ute]

Let's forget all this green energy crap... let's talk fusion!

Was this laser even bigger than the one in Real Genius?

[NorthwestUteFan]

Let's forget all this green energy crap... let's talk fusion!

Damn straight, Brother! The cool thing about fusion ignition is, if it runs out of power the reaction CAN NOT proceed. It requires the burst from the laser to initiate.

[Moliere]

http://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/arti...4-13105&KPLT=4

"Our greatest challenge as an industry is to avoid all gas, all the time, because it's very cheap today," Rogers said at an April 11 Energy for Tomorrow conference sponsored by The New York Times. "I think this is the first time in my career that our gas units are dispatching after nuclear and before all our coal plants. … That's based on price, because gas prices are so low."

Rogers noted that "tremendous inventories" of coal are building up in the PJM Interconnection LLC and Midwest ISO markets as natural gas is being burned on a regular basis for power generation. When asked what will happen to all this coal, Rogers responded, "I guess we'll be exporting it to China, maybe one answer."

The challenge for the United States is to keep nuclear and coal in the electricity generation mix, Rogers said. He predicted that "between now and 2030, you'll see electricity generated from gas be equal to coal in megawatt-hours. You're going to see that transition occur over the next 20 years."

[Moliere]

http://www.snl.com/InteractiveX/arti...4-13105&KPLT=4

His comments on cap-and-trade at the end of the article are, IMO, off the mark.

Added Rogers: "The unfortunate thing is, the Republicans have demonized cap-and-trade, and yet they're the ones that invented that in 1990 and called it one of the greatest regulatory achievements, to use market forces to achieve environmental goals." That cap-and-trade program was put in place to address the problem of acid rain.

There's a big difference between acid rain (SO2) and CO2 emissions. One is localized and easily manageable through CAT. CO2 and global warming can't be fixed through a regional CAT model. The entire planet would have to be on board, which they will never be.

[Green Monstah]

My company will reimburse me for costs up to $6,000 for converting my car from gasoline powered to CNG. There's a public filling station .5 miles from my work. I'm so tempted, but it will probably void my extended warranty on the car (bummer).

[Katy Lied]

There's a big difference between acid rain (SO2) and CO2 emissions. One is localized and easily manageable through CAT. CO2 and global warming can't be fixed through a regional CAT model. The entire planet would have to be on board, which they will never be.

Exactly.

[Donuthole]

My company will reimburse me for costs up to $6,000 for converting my car from gasoline powered to CNG. There's a public filling station .5 miles from my work. I'm so tempted, but it will probably void my extended warranty on the car (bummer).

I've thought about doing this with my Toyota Matrix and keeping it as a third car, but I didn't realize the cost of conversion was that high.

[Green Monstah]

I've thought about doing this with my Toyota Matrix and keeping it as a third car, but I didn't realize the cost of conversion was that high.

If you're an enterprising chap, I think you can do it for much less.