Nuc and desal

[Tracy Chimenti]

Just consider for a moment the clean air, the creation of clean water and massive amounts of electricity to power the new fleets of electric cars. The water that could be readjudicated to the Sac Valley/San Joaqin watershed for fish and their nurseries if monster municiplalities could swap-out their water sources. Jobs, new technology to power 75% of our transportation in 20-years, secured by subsidized electric rates to the factories and facilities. This alone can be justified by reduced reliance on places that are killing some of our country's finest. I am getting axious. At this time I'm convinced it's the answer. Just don't think we can get the train stopped. It took us about 60-years and a lot of dynamite to get here.

I think the F-18's, B2's and F-22 Raptors will have to run on 'ol ethel. Does anyone know what "commericial" and defense-related liquid-fuel demand represents in our national transportation energy total? If it's under 15%, it's also justifiable.

[Darian]

There's some momentum building up for a re-start of nuclear power programs; if I'm reading interest in energy and mining (uranium producers) stocks correctly. The main obstruction is, of course, the federal government whose ban on new nuclear power generation facilities remains in affect until the waste disposal problem is addressed. All of the storage facilities (Battle mountain, etc.) proposed by the feds have been loudly opposed (correctly :question:). One of the alternatives to underground storage is re-processing of nuclear waste. It supposedly results in reduction in residual radiation levels and recovery of side products (plutonium).... 8)

I'd say that the amount of Jet fuel required for air ops (peacetime/wartime) is high in relation to the rest of our usage. Jet fuel (used to be called JP-4), is about the same octane as kerosene (....a slight exaggeration but.... :confused: ) Given that air superiority is imperative in most armed conflicts (Kosovo, Iraq, etc.), the expense results in lives (ours) saved on the ground; probably justified.... (Lots of room for political comment here but I'm not going to indulge. :rolleyes: )

How about the combination of armed forces and civil air usage. Those big civil airline jets use a bunch of fuel with sometimes less than full capacity, passenger wise. Wonder about air freight capacities.... :confused:

Of course, all fuel used in transportation of goods or people requires burning of fossil fuels. Wonder what the world total use (in terms of gallons) is for a day, month or year :question: :question:

[Phil Synhorst]

If I have not been mislead, our Military is the largest consumer of petro products in the world.

[Tracy Chimenti]

Reading a book by Gwyneth Cravens now that said the waste with the longest half-life has the weakest radio-active power-- "background" radiation level. Strontium and cesium are two toxic undersireables in the waste, but they are in such minute quantities they could be no more dangerous in an epoxy lined cask on a concrete slab under a mountain than a farmer's tank of anhydrous amonia that he parks in front of his barn and uses for fertilization.

[Ed Wahl]

'Course, when the farmer used up his tank of anhydrous amonia he's just left with an inert empty tank.

[Tracy Chimenti]

co2 and other toxics and greenhouse gasses were released in then mean time. You ought to see the amount of energy it takes to make the stuff.

[wjorg]

"Methanol Economy" read it.........

[Tracy Chimenti]

... but I must admit, I have capitualted to the climate changer perspective, so greenhouse gasses are one thing I'm seeing here. It is safer than gasoline, has about half the power, but when mixed with gasoline, it has promise in hybrids.

I bet you could fly an F22 raptor with it!

[Darian]

After eating breakfast at Los Jarritos, I bet I could fly on methanol.... :eek: :eek:

[Ed Wahl]

If you ate breakfast at Los Jarritos you may qualify as a WMD.:lol:

[wjorg]

Darian,
I finally had to laugh at your extensive use of emoticons.....those two behind your methanol quote are funny.

Really though, the methanol economy is an interesting idea.

[Phil Synhorst]

METHanol......isn't that what the junkies use to fuel their cars, to get to the American and break into everyone elses:question:

[Darian]

I do try to add a bit of humor to this place. Ed needs someone to work with.... :unibrow:

Don't know enough about methanol to comment on it, yet. However, I recently saw a program on PBS that showed a dairy in the San Joaquin valley that has a methane recovery system in place. Uses a covered settling pond (several football fields long) to ferment (:question:) the cow crap. The gas is piped off for transport/storage. Interesting.

This dairyman is doing his part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions....

[wjorg]

When you create methanol you can scrub the air of co2. Of course its put back when you burn the methanol but at least its a neutral process.

Higher octane rating than gas...

Dont quote me on this but as methanol combusts it splits into methane, hydrogen (and other things?)....so you can utilize hydrogen as a fuel without having the problems associated with trying to store something atomically smaller than anything you would try to store it in, and hydrogen's explosive issues(like me on a bad day?).

just found a wikipedia page(havent even read yet but looks neat) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy

A really good book on the subject is George A. Olah (2005). "Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy"

ok.....off the soapbox(could you ever believe it?).

[Darian]

Given the propensity for drivers of motor vehicles to crash, I've been wondering how Hydrogen is considered safe for fuel in motor vehicles since it's explosive properties are what lead to using Helium in place of Hydrogen in lighter than airships (blimps/dirigibles) :question: :question: Oh well,.... whadoIknow.... :confused:

[wjorg]

Another good reason to store the Hydrogen you'll combust as methanol first.


And the Hindenburg didn't explode....it burnt....something about the a chemical impregnating the canvas, combined with the hydrogen fuel. You can see it on the old video....burning section by section....didnt really explode like a baloon full of hydrogen meeting a match.....

[Darian]

Walter,.... I do recall seeing the Hindenburg burn by sections....

I'm curious if methanol would be stored as a liquid or in a gaseous state, similar to oxygen :question: By any chance would you know the expansion ratio for methanol :question:

[Darian]

Thought I ought to contribute something to the original subject of "Nuc and desal".

A private company (Poseidon Resources) is completing construction of a DeSal plant with Orange County at Huntington Beach. This is a private-public partnership. The plant is scheduled to be operational in early 2009. This plant will cost $250 million, uses a reverse osmosis filtration process and produce 50 million gallons of drinking quality water per day. The plant requires 35 megawatts of power for ops.

The same company is partnering with the county of San Diego for a facility at Carlsbad, as well.... The details are available at:

www.poseidonresources.com

Pretty cool .8-) :nod:

[Phil Synhorst]

I'm glad to hear they are finally trying desal down south. I know I'm not the only one to wonder why it wasn't done long ago.

[wjorg]

expansion ratio for methanol...nope(240 to 79?)...but I can tell you how quickly methane expands through a sealed room or car....

[Tracy Chimenti]

The paper today gave a pretty unenthusing picture of it's energy plan-- not much money put into it, and a lack of banks willing to back the projects, etc. If Southern California is to get into the desal business, then need power and nuclear can supply the base load. Meanwhile, if there's not enough fear over this, the Surfrider Foundation and other ecology/conservation groups have a major hard-on for de-sal. I'm telling you, it's there for the taking.

[Darian]

Walter,.... If your guess about the expansion ratio is reasonable, it might mean that methane could be stored as liquid with some heavy duty cooling... That would make the footprint of a storage facility relatively small. Interesting.... :)

Traci,.... I read some of the articles from down south about the objections to the DeSal facilities. Looks like at least one will end up in court. Not sure how I feel about all of that. The objections are about potential problems of waste water treatment and potential damage to marine life (particularly smaller organisms). I read the documentation of the objections and the responses and, I've gotta admit, I'm not entirely sold on the Poseidon's position.

For example, the company says that the waste water (concentrated with salts), will be mixed with cooling water from a power generating facility (co-located) and released into the ocean. Poseidon believes that this dilution of the concentrates will have no significant impact on the ocean waters in that area. :-| The power service life of the power generating station is due to expire in 2013 (5 years). What happens after that date :question: If the station is decommissioned, would cooling water still be available :question: Would power for operation of the deSal facility still be available :question: Also, how many parts per million (concentrated salts) would be released into the ocean :question:

Poseidon's public response wasn't very assuring. Altho, that doesn't mean that their response in private wasn't OK. The articles do say that Poseidon is working with all parties to meet legal requirements and environmental concerns.... :nod:

[wjorg]

I always contemplated if it were possible to replace the salt producing industries(lots of uses of salt) with the utilization of deSAL waste water salts. That way the environmental issues of deSAL might be somewhat reduced. We have to come up with a way to deal with the salt....

If we could make deSAL cheap(solar/wind/methanol/nuclear) and have less toxic waste water....we could just run pipes back into the mountains and refill the underwater aquifer....wouldnt that be the day?

[Darian]

Walter,.... I'm not sure the salts mentioned are pure salt. This stuff may contain additional contaminants of some sort. Otherwise your idea would probably be implemented. :confused: Keep the faith.... :D

[Tracy Chimenti]

Hey guys, it's obvious that it's So. Cal's marine ecology vs. Nor. Cal's anadromous ecology.
I am a little unclear on this decomissioning thing, but I do know that Nuclear Power Plants are like dams-- as long as they can fight gravity and stand up, components can be retrofitted and fuel and waste can be switched out. The entire US naval nuclear-powerd fleet has recently come up for re-fueling and is still the best in the world.

It would be nice if you could get something from nothing, but you can't. Nuclear power, however, is the closest thing and can provide massive amounts of clean energy to power our industries and desalination plants. The problem with methane and any other combustible fuel, in my eyes, is that it's "gain" is reduced by the fact that it's burning propogates greenhouse gasses, something that we are trying to get away from.

In respect to recent articles on solar arrays in southern CA deserts, Gwyneth Cravens, the gal who wrote the book "Power to Save The World", said that the amount of heat absorbed by the array will likely cool the local region and create strong wind storms that will destroy the entire array.

The water is there for the taking.

[Darian]

Read an article in the SacBee today about the melting of the Antartic Ice Sheet. The ice at the south pole and Greenland comprises an estimated 90% of the worlds ice. If the ice on that pole melts, it's estimated that the oceans might rise a couple of meters. :-k With the contribution of all of that fresh water, salinity of oceans should be reduced; making DeSal easier and more productive.... :cool:

However, almost no form of DeSal or power generation is without problems or side affects. :neutral: Generation of power from nuclear sources creates problems with the disposal of spent materials and the need to mine uranium from sensitive wilderness areas. Solar requires the use of minerals and/or petro-chemicals to manufacture the solar panels. Disposal of those panels after they've reached their service limitations has not yet been addressed (recycling :question: ). :confused: Many of the objections to these projects are based on mis-information and resistance to change but some are valid. :cool:

I see little hope that development will not continue to increase as will increased need for water.... Altho deSal has it's problems, I'm a supporter whether powered by nuclear or conventional methods. :cool:

[Tracy Chimenti]

How to you get those emoticons to do all of that?

Tracy

[Darian]

It just seems like they're all doing what I want 'em to do.... :confused: It's my attempt to make sure everybody knows what I'm thinking when posting. :nod:

Here's some more info on our water discussion. :cool: I started looking into some of the related entities to Poseidon and found a company named Alinda Infrastructure Funds. This company is a source of funding for all of these companies and projects. They have interests in 14 states, 10 Canadian provinces and 5 European countries. :neutral: Investors (sources) are private and public sector retirement funds (can you say PERS/STRS/Teamsters, etc. :question: ). :cool: So, public funds are used to invest in private-public partnerships.... 8)

This stuff is really complex and very interesting.... :unibrow: :unibrow:

[Tracy Chimenti]

... here's to hoping that our "457" managers find us some good mutual funds in nuclear and desal. I think it's one of the few things I'd put money into right now other than bonds, treasuries, and GIC's.

[Darian]

Tracy,.... Check your PM's.... :)

[Mike O]

I have no problem with nuc power, matter of fact, I think our fears are without value. However, coming from the Area of the Diablo Canyon plant on the Central Coast, something would have to be done about the thermal plume from any (nat'l gas, nuc, or otherwise) which the the toughest byproduct of steam electrical power generation. Gotta cool the water or algal blooms, salmon and other fish die-offs would be incredible.

Off Diablo Canyon, fish from warmer waters thrive in the cove where the outflow is.

[Darian]

Good points. As for nuclear power generation, the technology is proven and reliable. However, my concern is always with the people involved in operations/maintenance of these facilities. The biggest problems at Rancho Seco were the result of mistakes and bad decisions by workers/managers (IMHO, the capper was the decision to allow low level, radiated cooling water to run down Clay Creek along Twin Cities Road and thinking nobody would notice).

As I recall, the warm water plume from the outfall pipe at King Harbor, Redondo Beach was credited for raising the water temps in Santa Monica Bay about 1 degree F back in the 50's. The result was a explosion in the population of Spiny Sea Urchins (always had to pick the spines out of my feet after a diving trip :mad: ). Urchins are very pretty creatures (and edible :nod: ) but damage Kelp forests. :(

All you divers know that if you crack one of 'em open (in the water), the flesh will attract a crowd in a hurry.... ;-)