Kapow! Nuclear fusion with a bullet
August 24, 2010
If John Woo had decided to get into the energy sector instead of bullet-ridden action movies, he might have proposed something like this: firing a diamond bullet into a chunk of solid methane to produce nuclear fusion. And you thought nuclear energy was already exciting.
Of course, the idea of using a high-speed projectile as an energy source is just a theory at the moment, proposed by a group of Chinese researchers at Beijing University in a pair of papers (“Hypervelocity Macroscopic Particle Impact Fusion with DT Methane” and “Fast Ignition Impact Fusion with DT methane”). Even though the energy required to fire a millimetre-sized bullet at 1,000 km/s is considerable, the papers’ authors believe there would still be a net energy gain.
According to the Popular Science article linked above:
The collision’s peak energy is 4 petawatts, at a rate of 1.5 petawatts over 40 nanoseconds. That’s four quadrillion watts. About 80 percent of that energy is wasted in the form of scattered neutrons, but the remaining electrons and radiation are enough to heat things up to fusion temperatures.
Novel alternatives to the current model of nuclear generation are cropping up every day, from alternative fuel sources like uranium nitride to DIY enthusiasts (link to DIY nuclear). But when it comes to exciting alternatives, it’s going to be hard to beat a diamond bullet. Unless, somehow, they can also include a golden gun.
Not Just A Bunch Of Hot Air
July 28, 2010
Air travel by dirigibles enjoyed a brief golden age in the early 20th century, evoking images of giant blimps crossing the Atlantic like airborne luxury liners. (There’s an urban legend that says the Empire State Building was even originally supposed to have a refuelling station built into its top, but as fanciful as it might seem, it’s also not true). But eventually, with the mounting logistical issues inherent in flying around in giant balloons, and the very public Hindenburg accident, the era ended. Now, when we’re talking about hydrogen fuel we’re talking about an entirely different way of travelling.
Still, the image of a lighter-than-air aircraft has continued to intrigue us, even if it’s not really feasible as a mode of mass transportation. That’s why it’s intriguing to see a manned solar-powered blimp designed to fly for an hour over the English channel. It’s a year behind schedule and will only carry a single passenger, but the Nephelios is slated to make its maiden, hour-long journey from Calais to Dover within the summer. Hope they get a sunny day.
Transportation continues to account for a huge share of our country’s greenhouse gas emissions (36 per cent in 2007), so it’s no wonder that even modest attempts at emission-free vehicles of tend to stimulate our optimism. Other public projects designed to produce solar-powered vehicles in recent years have included the Solar Impulse project and its round-the-world trip, and the University of Calgary’s Schulich I solar car, one of the participants in the North American Solar Challenge.
And while it won’t sail through the air like the Nephelios, or the fish-like prototype blimps we’ve covered previously, the Physalia, a floating river purifier and environmental museum, shows that the air isn’t the only place for fantastical vehicles powered by renewable energy. Even if the golden age of the dirigible never really did launch, there’s definitely room for emission-free transportation that could prove every bit as fantastical.
Take A Look Overhead
July 21, 2010
Lithium batteries are so yesterday. A solar-powered backpack? Pfft, you’ll have to do better than that. If you really want portable power, and you want to look cool doing it, it’s the bat hook or nothing.
Sure, a device designed to be thrown over your head and into overhead power lines might not offer any new ways of generating electricity, but it sure is… dangerous. (Not really, according to the US Department of Defence, provided of course that you’re already a trained soldier.) And, given that it conducts power from the line by slicing into it with a small blade, it might not exactly be the most popular option among cities that don’t want their infrastructure being constantly cut.
Just the same: who wouldn’t want to power their laptop with something called a bat hook? If there’s anything comics have taught us, it’s that anything becomes at least 50 per cent cooler with the prefix “bat”.
As it happens, over 60 per cent of Canada’s electricity is produced using hydro, with fossil fuels coming in second at about 23 per cent. Once generated, that electricity is transmitted throughout the country on over 160,000 kilometres of high voltage lines. How you get that electricity out of the grid, though, is entirely up to you.
Image Warner Brothers
A Nuclear Neighbourhood
July 19, 2010
Canada is still wrangling with its own nuclear future. For example, while Alberta has said that it will evaluate all private nuclear projects on a case-by-case basis, British Columbia has a standing policy of no nuclear power plants in the province. Federally regulated by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, there hasn’t actually been a new nuclear plant built in Canada in decades, and Bruce Power recently folded its own plans for a pair of new reactors in Ontario. At present, Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec are the only three provinces to produce electricity from nuclear power.
But imagine if it didn’t take millions of dollars to create a nuclear reactor. Imagine if they could be built right in our own backyards. That’s exactly what a group of 37 hobbyists in the United States have done — creating fusion reactors the size of air conditioners — with the most recent being built in Manhattan.
Fuelled by deuterium gas, the reactor itself actually contains no fissile materials (so there’s no danger of a Three Mile Island-style meltdown). But more important to the future of electricity generation, the reactor still isn’t at the break-even point, requiring more energy to run than it ends up producing. Still, its creator, Mark Suppes, is optimistic that one day he’ll be able to create a prototype that will at least break even. After that, who knows?
Decentralized power is definitely one of the most talked-about changes that we’re likely to see in our energy systems. One day, all our homes will be capable of generating their own electricity and selling it back to the grid. But it tends to be a lot easier to sell that concept to consumers when we’re talking about wind and solar. There’s always been something about nuclear power in our backyards that makes people a little more cautious.
Bigger And Biggerer
June 30, 2010
When we talk about solar power, we’re not always thinking big. It’s exciting to discover, for example, that there’s actually a species of ocean-bound bacteria that can photosynthesize just like land-based plants, and we’re always hearing about solar-powered devices like solar backpacks that can fit just about anywhere. But sometimes, bigger really is better — at least when we’re talking about megawatts.
At 100 MW, the Shams 1 solar power plant will certainly be producing more power than even the most incredible solar backpack. The plant will be built by Total (a French oil firm) and Abengoa Solar (a Spanish solar firm), and its 768 collectors will eventually cover 2.5 square kilometres. The project is intended to be the first of three, to be followed by Shams 2 and 3, and will take about two years to complete.
Despite being one of the world’s largest producers of oil, the UAE is no stranger to large-scale, headline-grabbing renewable energy projects. The largest of those, Masdar City, will eventually be the home of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), showcasing a variety of renewable energy and energy efficiency-related features.
Like Masdar City, Shams 1’s size provides two main benefits: a critical mass of energy production and, perhaps more importantly, a very public environmental offset to the emirates’ main export. But is it big enough?
When it comes to solar power, it can always get bigger: every day, the Earth receives the equivalent of 174 petawatts of energy from the sun (though over a third is reflected immediately by the upper atmosphere). The UAE are going to need a much, much bigger solar backpack for that one…
Take off
April 21, 2010
Was the six-year wait worth it? Test pilot Markys Scherdel seemed to think so. He recently kept the Solar Impulse, a solar-powered airplane, in the air for over an hour. It’s a big step towards the ultimate goal of flying this plane around the world planned for 2012.
With the wingspan of an Airbus A340, total solar cells numbering 12,000, weight of a mid-size car and average flying speed of 70 kilometers per hour, this electric-powered prototype won’t be breaking any land speed records. But that’s not stopping pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg from boldly going where no emissions-free vehicle has gone before.
2009: A Year in Waste
December 23, 2009
When it comes to energy there’s just something fascinating about waste products. Sure, the material’s almost always gross, but the idea of using garbage that would otherwise lay in piles or puddles makes great economic and environmental sense. Vancouver, for example, has plans to build six new waste-to-energy plants, dealing with the problems of residential garbage burning and reduced landfill capacity in one fell swoop.
So, in the spirit of sifting through piles for the best and brightest ideas, here’s a review of some of the icky, useful subjects that Flow waded through in 2009.
Banana peels
As it turns out, banana peels aren’t just for slapstick anymore. Like other cellulosic materials, bananas’ fibrous peels aren’t worth eating, which makes them a perfect source of biomass. The skins and leaves are mashed into a pulp and mixed with saw dust, which eventually hardens into bricks that can be burned as fuel.
Mountain pine beetle-killed wood
With mountain pine beetles spreading as fast as warmer winters will let them, the amount of wood destroyed by their infestation is growing. But while wood that’s been chomped on by the beetle’s larvae is useless as building material, it can still be packed into dense pellets for use as fuel. In fact, British Columbia has already integrated these wood pellets into its energy strategy through the BC Bioenergy Strategy.
Lumber mills
There are several ways to use the waste from lumber mills to create biofuels, from extract sugars from waste wood that can eventually be refined into ethanol, to the less tested bio-butanol, which has a more difficult refining process. Either way, in a country where “timber” is practically as important a phrase as “hello,” there’s no sense in letting wood waste go, well, to waste.
Manure
Manure, droppings or plain ol’ poop: call it what you will, but in the right hands the brown stuff is practically golden. Stories about the use of animal droppings as a fuel source were always cropping up in 2009, from a German town using its cows’ manure to produce biogas to chicken droppings as a source of heat to burning the methane from pig manure to produce electricity, no source is to smelly to be useful.
Shrimp shells
It takes a catalytic agent to turn biomass like canola oil into viable biofuel. As it turns out, an ideal source for that catalyst might be the chitinous shells of shrimp, which can not only increase the efficiency of biofuel production but, unlike other catalysts, is reusable. Hand it to researchers in Wuhan, China for turning a cocktail appetizer into a cleaner source of energy.
Finnish fish
All right, they don’t technically have to Finnish fish, but scientists in Finland are looking at the possibilities of fish waste in biodiesel. Between using fish’s chopped-off bits as an energy source or oceanic pollution, which would you choose?
Coffee grounds
Have you ever spilled a hot drink and watched a dark stain ruin the page you’d been reading? As it turns out, coffee’s (or tea’s) staining power can actually work to your advantage in a refillable ink cartridge fed by old grounds.
Cutaway your Christmas list
December 22, 2009
BibliOdyssey has the perfect gift idea for those impossible-to-buy-for people on your Christmas list. We bet they don’t have these.
Nuclear reactor wall charts.
Beautiful cutaway illustrations of the Super Phénix, the Snupps, the Fulton, a Canadian classic the Candu 3, the Douglas Point BRW/6, the Grand Gulf, the Guangdong and last but not least the Oskarshamn.
With this much choice, there is no excuse for not wrapping up you Christmas gift shopping today.
Image: UNM CSEL Nuclear Engineering Wall Chart Collection
Sea water to jet fuel
November 26, 2009
It’s true; you can make fuel out of just about anything these days. Scientists in the US Navy are making jet fuel out of sea water. Using a variation on the same technique used to make hydrocarbon fuels from syngas (derived from coal), they can extract carbon dioxide from the sea water.
Then, it can be further processed into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons, and refined into a kerosene-like fuel. The CO2 found in sea water is about 140 times more concentrated than in the air, making the ocean a veritable gold mine for this process.
With water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink, the Navy figured it should find some use for it other than floating their boats. With the threat of global warming, glaciers and icebergs melting, sea levels rising, maybe using sea water for fuel isn’t such a bad idea. After all, there may be a surplus.
Of course, they are developing it as a “clean” energy – or they will, provided they find the best catalyst; one that will create a minimum of carbon or methane during the process. Which means the glaciers and icebergs will not be melting, and there will not be a surplus of sea water…
But maybe the key here is using CO2- extracted from any source- as a fuel. This could solve a number of the worlds’ current problems, included global warming, and reliance on foreign oil.
Recycle CO2 as a fuel source, and reduce it in the atmosphere as well.
Shrimp shells
November 25, 2009
Food and fuel meet again; shrimp shells increase the efficiency of bio-fuel production.
The conventional method of turning soybean or canola oil into valuable fuels requires a single-use catalyst like sodium hydroxide that needs to be neutralized by lots of water. Despite making a “greener” fuel than gasoline, all this polluted water isn’t doing anybody any favours.
Scientists in Wuhan, China have done what they always knew makes a dish better- they have added shrimp. Not only is shrimp a cleaner catalyst, but it can be reused, and is much more efficient at rendering plant oil into bio-fuel.
The shrimp shells are composed mainly of chitin. That’s significant, because it’s a material that when heated, becomes very porous. That makes the process much faster. In only three hours, 89 per cent of the batch can been successfully converted.
The researchers at Hua Zhong Agriculture University heated the shrimp shells beforehand, making a framework material that is then mixed with potassium fluoride. The goal was to find an environmentally friendly way to make an environmentally friendly fuel.
Certainly the scientists were happy with the result. By adding shrimp shells to the process, there is less waste and pollution, less energy required due to its efficiency and no wasted water to neutralize. Additionally, there is less cost associated with this method, as the shrimp shell catalyst can be used again, and shrimp are cheap to acquire. The results are a sustainable process and a cleaner fuel.
That’s a deliciously good solution for all.