THE ULTIMATE GROUND TRANSPORT FUEL

I love those colors, and there will be an explanation later related to quantum dots.  But what is the ultimate fuel for ground transport?  Some would argue that electricity will prevail and many, still, gasoline.  Very few of any sense would say ethanol, although federal governments, including mine, today continue to support this option.  There is a core of advocates for hydrogen, especially in Southern California and various automobile companies.

The Methanol Economy seemed to come and go with George Olah.  However, his concept was based on producing methanol from fossil fuels.

Let me start with the basics.  The first element in the chemical table, and the most abundant in the Universe, is hydrogen.  This gas is fused by our Sun and all the stars to produce solar energy.  But isotopes of hydrogen are the active ingredients for the Hydrogen Bomb.  Nevertheless, some say, this has got to be the ultimate fuel.  I was there when the Hydrogen Romantics first met at Nejat Veziroglu's 1974 gathering in Miami, in 1979 wrote the first hydrogen legislation in the U.S. Senate, which became the Matsunaga Hydrogen Act, and in the 90's chaired the Secretary of Energy's Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel.  I even worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion.  My Huffington Post article on Starpower for Humanity is worthy of your click.  However, I irritate friends and Romantics when I say the Hydrogen Economy is at least a century away.  Controlled fusion for electricity will not be commercialized anytime soon, and there is no infrastructure, nor any approaching cost-effective technology, to be competitive for ground or air transport.  I still think that, someday, some next generation aircraft will be powered by hydrogen.

Anyway, let's get to the next level of simplicity, methane (left):  one carbon and four  hydrogen atoms.  This is the compound that is most of natural gas, which has suddenly become "cheap" through the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.  Not only is methane dangerous for global warming, as one molecule is from 20-65 times worse than one molecule of carbon dioxide, but this is my featured villain in THE VENUS SYNDROME, which could well be the ultimate doomsday scenario.

If you can find a way to insert oxygen, you have methanol (above right), the simplest hydrocarbon liquid.  I remain of the opinion that a liquid will dominate as the ground transport form of this century.  What is currently lacking is the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC).  Well, not quite true, as Toshiba is said to be marketing a DMFC (left) for portable applications, so the concept is real.  Methanol is the only liquid which can be directly and efficiently utilized by a fuel cell.  The part that convinced me most about the sensibility of methanol is that one gallon of this fuel has 1.4, or 140% more accessible hydrogen atoms than one gallon of liquid hydrogen.  You know how much it costs to produce liquid hydrogen?  Anyway, there is no DMFC for automobiles, for reasons that befuddle me, although I sometimes think that the Farm Lobby had a lot to do with this tragedy to protect ethanol.  Many of my first ten articles for the Huffington Post features methanol.

The traditional way to make methanol is the steam reforming of natural gas.  Let us eliminate all fossil fuels from this process.  You can destructively distillate wood, which is why methanol is also called wood alcohol or methyl alcohol.  This process is too expensive, so the gasification and catalysis of biomass is how industry currently produces methanol.  Economic analysis will show that the resultant product for ground transport is cheaper than fermentation for methanol or ethanol.

However, I've led you this far to introduce you to an excitingly new concept:  combine carbon dioxide from the air and non-potable water to generate methanol using solar energy.  This way you also reduce global warming.  While not quite that, Jim Lane, editor and publisher of Biofuels Digest, reports on:

  Quantum Dots:  A New Nanohighway to Renewable Fuels

To summarize, the National Science Foundation provided a $2 million grant to a group of researchers at Lehigh, led by Steve McIntosh and Bryan Berger (to the left), to make methanol using only carbon dioxide, sunlight and water.  The key is to produce quantum dots using bacteria.  Huh?  Well, you can read the article.  They are nowhere close to commercializing their system, but it certainly makes sense to me.  Now, let's get on with, in parallel, perfecting the direct methanol fuel cell.  

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UPDATE ON PEARL'S GOLD TREE

My wife, Pearl, passed away a little more than four years ago.  One of my tributes to her was to plant a very special gold tree. known as Tabebuia donnell-smithii, somewhere in her honor.  She admired the intense yellow color, and, coincidentally, many of them were prominent on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii, including just outside my office to the left.

On the Big Island, Councilman Dennis "Fresh" Onishi is arranging for these trees to be located at the Hilo Municipal Golf Course and/or a beach site.  In Honolulu, Garrick Iwamuro, Golf Course System Administrator, is heading the effort to eventually plant these trees at the Ala Wai Golf Course.  It was a year ago that some key City and County leaders met at the nursery near Diamond Head to visit those 82 saplings being grown out:

Garrick is to the left and Councilman Onishi is third from the right.  You can barely see the young Gold Trees behind them.  Today I went over and took another photo:

I would say that the height doubled and they looked healthy.

I then dropped by Garrick's office at the Ala Wai Golf Course to gain his perspective on when these trees might be planted, now that their irrigation project has been just about completed.  He is a horticulturist by training, and felt that it might be some time next year.  Who knows, perhaps some day when you drive along the Ala Wai, you will gaze upon a bank of brilliant yellow trees lining the Mauka side of the canal.  Same for Hilo off Haihai Street.

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THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY?

I am a skeptic of many things.  Miracles, especially major biblical ones.  Silver coin sales.  An afterlife, nah.  The oldest person in the world?  I actually wrote an entire chapter on Eternal Life, in SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity, so, if anything, I think someday science will neutralize the "aging gene," and we should be able to live, maybe not forever (sickness, accidents, etc.), but for a very long time.

The latest supercentenarian is Carmelo Flores Laura (above) from Bolivia being 123 years old, which would break the record of Jeanne Calment (France), who was verified to be 122 years and 164 days when she passed away in 1997.

As Calment smoked for 96 years, Flores has chewed coca leaf all his life.  Here is Bolivia's President Evo Morales pleading the case for this practice (note the lei he is wearing is made of coca leaf).  Flores has never been seriously ill and has traveled as far away as La Paz, 50 miles distant.  

I don't think Carmelo Flores Laura is 123 years old:

• Birth certificates did not exist in Bolivia until 1940.
• Bolivia's civil registrar, Eugenio Condori, indicated that Flores (he is referred to by this name) was born on 16July1890, the evidence being a Roman Catholic baptism certificate...BUT COULD NOT SHOW IT BECAUSE IT IS A PRIVATE DOCUMENT!
• Says Flores, "I should be 100 years old or more."  However, one of his surviving children, Cecilio, is 67 years old, which means his father, Flores, was 56 at birth, which is certainly not out of the question.

• In recorded history, fewer than 100 people can be documented to have reached the age of 114, and nine up to 116, with only one undisputed, Jiroemon Kimura (above) from Japan, who just passed away two months ago.

Says Guinness, all the cases of individuals reaching 113, 114 and 116 (the case for Kimura has not yet been heard) were discredited.  Further:

  No single subject is more obscured by vanity, deceit, falsehood and deliberate fraud than the extremes of longevity.

There are three other supercentenarians who have claimed to be the oldest:

• Jose Coelho de Souza of Brazil:  129 years, 164 days (photo above)
• Leandra Becessa Lumbreras of Mexico:  125 years, 355 days
• Pedra Bento of Brazil:  124 years 53 days

There is no supporting evidence.

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A STEAK DINNER AT SIGNATURE

Signature Prime Steak and Seafood is a new restaurant in Honolulu which opened just last month at the top of the Ala Moana Hotel.  My 96-year old friend, Ed Jurkens, and I usually have two steak dinners a year:

We started with a double gin martini of Hedrick's from Scotland, then a Cabernet Sauvignon.  I had two dishes, a Caesar's salad:

Which I ate with my fingers, and a bone-in rib-eye with truffles mash potatoes and asparagus:

The steak was a bit overdone, but very, very tasty.  Not a terribly great shot, but my view was a Blue Full Moon:

This was a Tuesday night, and the place was packed...mostly locals.  Not only was the food exceptional, but the staffing was superb.  As my birthday is around the corner, a very large triple chocolate cake came gratis, which Ed ate.  Here he is with Tempsy Gryder, their Event and Service Specialist:

Signature is Peter Kim's (below) latest adventure, and a great addition to his Yummy's take-outs:

If you don't know his story, he was a placekicker for the University of Hawaii football team, who transferred to kick for  Coach Bear Bryant at Alabama.

But that was not all for the night.  We then walked to Ed's apartment at 1350 Ala Moana and watched "Jiro Dreams of Sushi."  We also were treated to a fireworks show from the Hilton Hawaiian Village:

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OTEC: Part II

The concept of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) appears to be finally awakening for commercial development.  The above more recent graphic from Lockheed Martin shows that the region east of the Philippines is best for OTEC.  Of course, this where all those destructive typhoons are generated.  Could a slight cooling of these waters prevent the formation of these devastating storms?  Anyway, as long as you place your floating structure anywhere near the Equator, there should be no problem, for no hurricane/typhoon has been know to cross the equator.

Two months ago my posting was titled, "Is OTEC the most promising future sustainable energy option?"  Let's call that Part 0.  Last week, Part 1 was titled "OTEC for Hawaii."  Today, I report on progress around the world.  On September 13 or 14 I will post on "OTEC Part III," a summary of what by then will have happened at the fourth gathering of OTEC experts to occur at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority.  Click on the second meeting for those details.  This summit was organized by Guy Toyama (left), who passed away late last year.

The most prominent newsworthy item is that Lockheed Martin essentially abandoned Hawaii and has entered into an agreement to develop a 10 MW offshore Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) for China.  The announcement indicated that additional systems in the range of 10 MW and 100 MW will be considered with initial success.  Must be serious, as Secretary of State John Kerry was included in the photo released:

Why did Lockheed Martin leave Hawaii?  I suspect they had hopes that Senator Inouye would provide Navy funding for the first experiment.  After he passed away, they saw no government potential, and the company is not spiritually conformed to come up with several hundred million dollars of in-house funds.

According to Hawaiian Electric Company, OTEC International plans to construct a 1-MW demonstration plant at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority for operation in 2014, and the two companies are negotiating on a 100 MW floating platform to supply electricity to Honolulu.

Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation has signed a memo of understanding with Bahamas Electricity Company to supply electricity and freshwater. To the left, my lunch with Ted Johnson (who formerly directed the Lockheed Martin OTEC group) and Jeremy Feakins, who heads the company.  Their concept is different.  The OTEC system will be, as all those others currently being considered, still closed-cycle, but OTE Corporation will themselves finance the program and work out a 25-30 year power purchase agreement with the utility.  Much of the technical work will be handled by Kongsberg Devotek of Norway.  Forbes reports that this company is involved with a coldwater pipe system for Baha Mar, a $3.4 billion luxury gaming resort in the Bahamas to be financed and built by China.  An eight foot diameter pipe is envisioned, with deep cold water also being made available for terrestrial maricultural enterprises, production of fresh water and the like.  The primary application would be cold water air conditioning. There remains the possibility of OTE Corporation succeeding in building an OTEC facility for the Navy on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.  As the price of these facilities is being mentioned as $100 million, the size must be relatively smallish and far less than 10 MW.  Plus, these would be built on land, so the selected sites would be need to tolerate the return of the effluent waters into the ocean.  Plus, talks are ongoing with the Virgin Island, the Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico and the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.

Bluerise of the Netherlands has a miniature pilot plant at Delft University.  The company is talking about an OTEC facility as part of a total system eco-industrial park at the airport on the island Curacao in the Lesser Antilles.  Lots of activity going in in the Caribbean.

Xenysys of Japan has been exploring options around the world.  They have a 50 kW OTEC pilot plant on Kume Island, Okinawa.  Discussions have been held with various islands around the world about their technology.  To the left, I am pontificating, as usual, to Professor Yasu Ikegami of Saga University, who is an advisor to Xenysys.

The European Union is beginning to look into the possibilities:

• a 10 MW facility for Martinique, said to be well in progress, except funding has been slow in coming from uncertainty about the sale of carbon emission permits
• the first cold-water airconditioning system for a hotel at the InterContinental Resort,
  Bora Bora

• tests by DCNS are ongoing on La Reunion in the Indian Ocean--I visited this site in 2005 and they came by Hawaii subsequently to find out more about the technology--above, that obligatory photo of OTEC interests having lunch with me at Orchids
• UK's Ocean Thermal Energy and DCNS of France are plotting something for the U.S. Virgin Islands
• Energy Island Bell Pirie from the UK plans to build a 10 MW OTEC facility in Cabangan, Philippines

Five upcoming gatherings in particular are worthy of your consideration:

• OTEC Symposium at the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit, September 9-11 in Honolulu
• Hawaii-Okinawa Clean Energy Cooperation Ocean Energy Workshop, Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority, September 13
• Organic Rankine Cycle 2013 Conference hosted by Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, October 7-8
• OTEC Africa Conference 2013, but to be held at the University of Boras, Sweden
• Offshore Renewable Energy Conference, Singapore, October 29-31

OTEC News is a good source of current OTEC information.  I delayed this posting because I had hopes of catching a couple of local experts on my floor on campus, but they must travel more than I do.  I'll add their comments when I review the upcoming OTEC gatherings early next month.

Not quite OTEC, but the following four are all marine biotechnologists.  Shizuko and Shigetoh Miyachi are visiting HNEI this month.  Here, lunch with Brandon Yoza and Stephen Masutani:

Professor Miyachi retired from Tokyo University to found and head the Japan Marine Biotechnology Institutes for a decade.

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IS GLOBAL WARMING RESPONSIBLE FOR MORE SHARK ATTACKS?

The Australian AFP actually reports there is a correlation.  Even the Climate Information (Responding to User Needs) of the University of Maryland has hinted so.  But, then again, virtually anything anomalous gets associated with global warming.  

But what about Hawaii, with so many bites this summer?  Depends on the source, but the number this year is actually less than last year, so far.  In 2008 there were only two.  The last  local fatal shark attack was in 2004, but one of recent victims is on life support.

From the London Sealife Aquarium:

• Sharks kill around 20 humans per year.  But:
• toasters and chairs are each responsible for 600-770 deaths/year
• falling coconuts claim 150 lives yearly
• wasps kill 100 of us each year
• About a thousand of us drown/year.
• Sharks have been around for 400 million years.  Humans?  Perhaps 100,000 years.

The three most dangerous sharks are:

• Great White:  
• a grand total of 403 confirmed attacks from 1580-2010 (yes, more than four hundred years, or about one per year), with 65 being fatal
• usually 10-15 feet long and can weigh up to 4,200 pounds
• Tiger (to the right, the young have stripes):

• in that same timeframe, 157 attacks, with 63 deaths
• up to 18 feet long and 2,000 pounds
• Bull:  
• 59 attacks, 25 fatal
• can be 11.5 feet long and up to 500 pounds
• found in 100 feet depth or less

Click on the International Shark Attack File for all shark attacks from 1580 to 2012.  Thirty-five different types of sharks are listed.

But how many sharks do we kill each year?  First of all, commercial fishermen are not very honest about their catches.  The more and more banned shark fin soup remains a delicacy.  This HuffPo article says that sharks kill 12 of us/year.  The Marine Policy journal estimates 100 million sharks killed by us/year.  The actual number falls somewhere between 63 million and 272 million.  Not sure if Google will allow me this much space, and sorry, but here is a comparative graphic on humans killed by sharks PER YEAR and humans killing sharks PER HOUR:

Even if you try, you won't be able to read the details, for the first line of 12 humans compared to all the dead sharks is so miniscule.  To be more accurate, the shark deaths should be multiplied by 365 for a year to year comparison.

Egregiously, it does get worse.  In the USA we consume 7 billion chickens annually.  But we are only 5% of the world, so something closer to 50 billion (if divided by 5%, the total might well be 140 billion) worldwide could be accurate enough.  The number of chicken eggs produced could well approach a trillion.  Mexicans average close to an egg a day.  In April someone from Vietnam died from the bird flu, the first such death in a year.

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There is a cluster of ocean storms south and west of Hawaii.  The most powerful, Typhoon Pewa, is projected to attain Category 3 status, but all of them are moving away from this State.

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LUNCH WITH DIAMOND HEAD AND WAIKIKI BEACH

The past 24 hours have been memorable.  It all began with golf at the Ala Wai Golf Course.  I then drove to the Waikiki Sheraton (largest building in the extreme right background above).  I was given a gigantic suite at the end of the building on the 12th floor right over Waikiki Beach.  My first view was:

Diamond Head in the distance and Sheraton's infinity pool below me.  I took a long bath and, as it was still a bit early, went up to the Leahi Club for a glass of Chardonnay.  There is no better view for a Starwood Executive Club:

I'm here because Chaine des Rotisseurs is having a Paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) summer barbecue.  I sat next to Christel (she, with Jan, were my dance partners tonight), Bruce (the Grand Poobah of CdR in Hawaii and also associate dean of engineering at the University of Hawaii) and Jan:

Everyone brought their personal favorite bottle of wine.  The beginning featured Ha Ha Juice Popsicle Mimosa (let your imagination run wild).  Kelly Sanders, the general manager here, is a CdR member.  Barbara Jurkens, no doubt, had a lot to do with my fabulous room.  The cuisine was of CdR quality:

• Ahi Toro Sashimi
• Asian Poisson Cru
• Chilled Dungeness Crab
• Whole Baked Snapper
• Baby Caprese salad
• Chopped Caesar
• Sizzling Blackened Chicken with 24 spices
• Shichimi Spice Prawns
• Tofu Karrage Rossini
• Kobe Beef Sliders
• Fingerling Potato Salad
• Artisan DinnerRolls
• Three Bean Casserole
• Watermellon Cake
• Washington Apple Pie
• Georgia Peach Cobbler
• Cherries Jubilee
• Pacojet Style gelato, with the absolutely outsanding star of the show being coconut truffles

The Favia, a Rompecabezas, was Bruce's contribution, and absolutely wonderful.  Kathryn Nicholson was a culinary wizard in bringing together all the above.  Our next extravaganza (tux and golf) designed by Kimi will be four days at the the Four Season Hualalai next month.  Senior singles can have fun.  Here she is with Bruce and her husband:

I talked Christel and her high school classmate in Munich, Gabby, to come up for a final drink in my gorgeous suite.  What a shame if no one else saw it and the view.  Christel and I promised to meet at 53 by the Sea for an early dinner before the end of the month.  The view of Waikiki Beach below at night:

The pounding surf and the bottles of wine we borrowed from the dinner made for an enjoyable conclusion to the festivities, and added to my coming lunch.

Here is where it gets memorable.  I woke up at 11:30, the latest in my entire life.  I was planning on a Japanese breakfast with a view of Diamond Head, but it was too late.  So I had the following international meal:

How international?  Japanese Asahi beer, French Vouvray sparkling wine (champagne can only come from the Champagne Region), Napa/Sonoma Valley Grand Cru Merlot, American chili cheese hotdog and salad, with Mexican Doritos.  This was also my first 3-hour lunch...with Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach.

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THE FORBES FINANCIAL GRADE FOR UNIVERSITIES

I've never seen this before, but the latest issue of FORBES announced the College Financial Grades of American universities.  The rankings and grades depended on five categories:

• Balance Sheet Health (40%)
• Operational Soundness (35%)
• Admissions Yield (10%)
• Freshmen Receiving Institutional Grants (7.5%)
• Instructional Expenses (7.5)

As explained in the article, the resultant rankings had something to do with how well universities would do if they were on the stock market and people could invest in them.  That is, where would you put your money if you wanted a higher value in the future?

Nice to see Stanford at #1.  When I was there more than half a century ago, the "mascot" was an Indian.  Now, best as I can tell, it is a tree.  

Anyway , the top ten were:

• #   1  Stanford                          $58,846    19,945   A+
• #   2  Pomona College             $57,014      1,586   A+
• #   3  Princeton                        $54,780     7,813   A+
• #   4  Yale                               $59,320    11,875   A+
• #   5  Columbia                       $61,540    26,050   A+
• #   6  Swarthmore                    $58,481      1,545   A+
• #   7  West Point                         ?             4,624    ?
• #   8  Harvard                          $57,050    27,392   A+
• #   9  Williams                         $59,412      2,126   A+
• # 10  MIT                                $57,010    10,894   A+
• .
• #  26  Georgetown                                                  B
• .
• #106  Purdue                                                         C

The money column is the annual cost of attendance, while the next is the student enrollment.  But those grades seemed to have no connection to rankings, as for example:

• #  76  Colorado College                                           A+
• #276  Hanover College                                            A

One explanation is that Grinnell College is #64 with an A+, but that is because Warren Buffet gave them $1.5 billion (he was on their board of trustees).  Also, Bard College at #166 got an A- because George Soros donated $60 million in 2011, the year of the evaluation.

Why Pomona College is #2 is a mystery.  Pomona is in an alliance with four other colleges as the Claremont Colleges in Southern California.  Pomona was last year ranked by Kiplinger as the second best value of liberal arts colleges.  In 2010 it was ranked by The Princeton Review as #1 in classroom experience.

I searched and searched and could not find the University of Hawaii .  Either they left us out or we did not make the top 925.  Hawaii Pacific University was #383 with a C+ grade, so not being on that list must have most to do with my reading ability.  Urbana University of Ohio came in last at 925 with a D grade, and #924 was Regis College of Massachusetts, also with a D.  Maybe out of courtesy they left out the F grades.

Why the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) is in the top ten, but the U.S. Naval Academy is #28 and U.S. Air Force Academy is #31 also does not make much sense.  Aren't they all funded by the same U.S. Federal Government?

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Interestingly enough, Tropical Storm Pewa just formed south of Hawaii.  Pewa will become a hurricane, but continue moving west then northwest, but completely miss our state.  

The intriguing situation is around Taiwan.  Tropical Depression 12 at 35 MPH is southwest of the island, will move further east, then make a U-turn and become a typhoon just at the northern tip on Thursday:

What's so unusual about that?  Well, Tropical Depression 13 has formed around Okinawa and will slowly head towards the northern tip of Taiwan  and become a typhoon.  

While the current arrival date is Wednesday, with a just a few hours delay, this storm will merge with #12 when it also becomes a typhoon.  Keep watching these developments.

Here are the current ocean storms:

Tropical Storm Erin in the Atlantic will peter out.

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