The Energy Thread

[falafel]

What spigot?

I think your people call it a "hose pipe."

[Uncle Ted]

What does it take for Biden to turn the spigot on? Still cleaner than Iran, Venezuela or Russia. Does no one realize that Global Warming is well, global?

And getting oil via a pipeline would be cleaner than shipping it by rail from Canada… but would Warren Buffet still donate to Joe’s re-election campaign if he allowed the keystone pipeline to be built?

[Green Monstah]

The idea that there's this massive, untapped hydrocarbon resource in the US that is not being exploited by the sheer force of Biden's will is somewhat laughable. The best part of the Permian has no federal oversight (there are some good resources in NM, however that will need to b communitized with federal minerals). Removing federal leases from auction has minimal impact on domestic oil production for years.

Most Bakken operators are sitting on dozens of approved drilling permits.

I'm not saying Biden policy has no effect on domestic oil production, but it's just not a matter of snapping one's fingers to alleviate supply crunch.

[Uncle Ted]

Let the rolling blackouts begin...

IMG_03AEB4EB783B-1.jpeg



ERCOT wants me to stop charging my electric car. No way am I walking in this heat!


Speaking of electric cars.

[Uncle Ted]

Nuclear fusion team finally publishes some papers... A year later with more than 1000 authors:

Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Confirmed: California Team Achieved Ignition

A major breakthrough in nuclear fusion has been confirmed a year after it was achieved at a laboratory in California.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL's) National Ignition Facility (NIF) recorded the first case of ignition on August 8, 2021, the results of which have now been published in three peer-reviewed papers.

Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the Sun and other stars: heavy hydrogen atoms collide with enough force that they fuse together to form a helium atom, releasing large amounts of energy as a by-product. Once the hydrogen plasma "ignites", the fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining, with the fusions themselves producing enough power to maintain the temperature without external heating.

Ignition during a fusion reaction essentially means that the reaction itself produced enough energy to be self-sustaining, which would be necessary in the use of fusion to generate electricity.
[...]

https://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-fus...fornia-1733238

Three peer-reviewed papers highlight scientific results of National Ignition Facility record yield shot

After decades of inertial confinement fusion research, a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules (MJ) was achieved at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) for the first time on Aug. 8, 2021, putting researchers at the threshold of fusion gain and achieving scientific ignition.

On the one-year anniversary of this historic achievement, the scientific results of this record experiment have been published in three peer-reviewed papers: one in Physical Review Letters and two in Physical Review E (See papers one and two). More than 1,000 authors are included in the Physical Review Letters paper to recognize and acknowledge the many individuals who have worked over many decades to enable this significant advance.

“The record shot was a major scientific advance in fusion research, which establishes that fusion ignition in the lab is possible at NIF,” said Omar Hurricane, chief scientist for LLNL’s inertial confinement fusion program. “Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”
[...]

https://www.llnl.gov/news/three-peer...acility-record

Omar Hurricane... what an awesome name.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Nuclear fusion team finally publishes some papers... A year later with more than 1000 authors:


https://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-fus...fornia-1733238


https://www.llnl.gov/news/three-peer...acility-record

Omar Hurricane... what an awesome name.

Meh. Fusion is always 15 years away.

[Bo Diddley]

Meh. Fusion is always 15 years away.

Yeah I don't know how people could have thought we were that close years ago, but the progress they're making is promising. Maybe in the next 50 years?

[Uncle Ted]

Yeah I don't know how people could have thought we were that close years ago, but the progress they're making is promising. Maybe in the next 50 years?

I remember SimCity allowed you to start building fusion reactors in 2050... So my money is on 2050.

[All-American]

Meh. Fusion is always 15 years away.

As long as we can burn coal, anyway.

[Uncle Ted]

Maybe the golden eagle should be extinct for being dumb... #DarwinismAtWork

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[Jeff Lebowski]

Very interesting episode of The Daily podcast today on the potential for mining lithium, nickel, cobalt etc from the bottom of the ocean in the eastern pacific. Massive quantities of these metals lying in potato-sized nodules on the bottom. Companies are ramping up to mine them, but some blowback already. Would be critical to facilitate the move from fossil fuels to electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles are going to require metals far beyond what we have needed in the past, which will requiring mining. Will environmentalists be able to see the big picture and support mining? Time will tell.

[Uncle Ted]

Very interesting episode of The Daily podcast today on the potential for mining lithium, nickel, cobalt etc from the bottom of the ocean in the eastern pacific. Massive quantities of these metals lying in potato-sized nodules on the bottom. Companies are ramping up to mine them, but some blowback already. Would be critical to facilitate the move from fossil fuels to electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles are going to require metals far beyond what we have needed in the past, which will requiring mining. Will environmentalists be able to see the big picture and support mining? Time will tell.

If they start mining this stuff off the bottom of the ocean then what will China do with all its slave labor? Dumb environmentalists can see past the end of their noses.

[Jeff Lebowski]

If they start mining this stuff off the bottom of the ocean then what will China do with all its slave labor? Dumb environmentalists can see past the end of their noses.

There are thousands of square miles of this stuff. It is 2.5 miles down, but it sounds like they have solved the engineering issues. Just need to scale it up.

[All-American]

Announcement made for a nuclear fusion power plant to be built in the UK, to be operational by the early 2040s. If no one else beats it to the punch, and if successful, it will be the world's first operational nuclear fusion plant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-...shire-63119465

[Scott R Nelson]

Announcement made for a nuclear fusion power plant to be built in the UK, to be operational by the early 2040s. If no one else beats it to the punch, and if successful, it will be the world's first operational nuclear fusion plant.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-...shire-63119465

Don't they need a few breakthroughs before this can happen? Or are they assuming they'll have it figured out in twenty more years.

I've followed progress on nuclear fusion and as far as I know, nobody has gotten more power out of a fusion reaction than they put into it for more than a fraction of a second. It would be cool if somebody has figured it out, but I don't think they have.