SIMPLE SOLUTIONS FOR HUMANITY'S MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEMS: #7--The Ultimate Energy System (Part 2A), Overview

In time, fossil fuels will soar in cost, partly because someday there will be a severe carbon tax, but also because there is only so much of it left.  Peak Oil has been delayed, there is a goodly amount of coal left, certainly nasty tar sands and a lot of shale oil.  The USA is the Saudi Arabia of shale.  But well within a century, fossil fuels will become history.  To the left, the sources of electricity.  Unknown to many, most of the fossil fuels are at the bottom of the ocean as methane hydrates, my concern as the trigger for The Venus Syndrome.

The problem with most renewable energy sources is the intermittency.    Our Sun (energy produced by the fusion of  hydrogen) is only effectively available for an average of 8 hours/day and our winds come and go.  Plus, there are questions of something called Energy Returned from Energy Invested (EROI).  As this heat comes from the Sun, you could say that both solar and wind energies are nuclear power.  Energy storage makes sustainable resources more amenable, but the total cost factor argues for other options.  

Drill down to some distance and you will eventually encounter heat, which, by the way, comes from the radioactive decay of elements like uranium and thorium.  Hot dry rock geothermal is, thus, intriguing.  At 660 km (which is deeper than 400 miles) the temperature reaches 3000 F.  While that is far too deep for current and future technology, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have speculated that there is 300 times more accessible (down to a little more than 5 miles) geo-energy than all the fossil fuels still available.  Keep an eye on this pathway, but don't hold your breath.

About ocean power, I long ago dismissed tidal, current, salinity gradients and wave resources as viable for mega-applications (certainly, here and there with exceptional natural conditions, a few sites will be commercialized) for a variety of reasons. Like geothermal, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is base load, and has the potential to equal the current usage of energy in the world.  I will cover this promise in a later posting on the Blue Revolution.

So what about nuclear power?  As you know, there are two different kinds:

• fission (which depends on the splitting of large atoms like from Uranium and Plutonium--or, the Atomic Bomb):  this is the process used by all commercial nuclear facilities today

• fusion (fuses small elements, like Hydrogen--think Hydrogen Bomb--yes, this is the much bigger bomb, but think of the potential for peace--plus it's much cleaner)
• our Sun and all stars generate heat through fusion
• on Earth, scientists are tinkering with magnetic confinement (ITER in France) and inertial confinement (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory):  I cannot report on anything optimistic today, but the future of Humanity will depend on success here
• then there is Lockheed Martin's compact fusion machine
• there is also a concept called Cold Fusion, where the reaction occurs at room temperature, as compared to 15 million degrees C in our Sun, 150 million C for ITER and 100 million C for laser fusion, and here is just one opinion:

Cold fusion with palladium requires heavy water (deuterium oxide). Cold fusion with nickel appears to work as well with ordinary water as with heavy water. I expect nickel will become the dominant cathode material, in which case the fuel cost will be as close to zero as any fuel imaginable. Even heavy water fuel would be cheap. Heavy water costs about $1000 per kilogram retail, even though it is ubiquitous (it is 1 part in 6000 in every drop of water on earth). It is expensive because a lot of energy is required to separate it from ordinary water, and because demand is limited, so new separation technologies have not been developed.⁶ But you get a fantastic amount of energy out of a fusion reaction. Even at $1000 per kilogram, heavy water would be thousands of times cheaper than oil. In a heavy water cold fusion economy, a fraction of a percent of the fuel would have to be recycled to keep the heavy water separation plants working, whereas today 7% of oil goes to refinery use and loss.⁷ There are some indications that the cathode metal itself plays a role in the reaction. It may be transmuted, in which case it would be used up. A cold fusion reactor may require new metal from time to time, the way a fission reactor requires new uranium. Palladium and nickel are cheaper than uranium, and all three produce energy cheaper than oil does.

So let's return to today and you could have missed this piece of news, but the 42-year old 600 MW Yankee nuclear power plant in Vermont, with Federal approval to operate for 17 more years, quietly shut down for good yesterday.   Just this facility had provided 70% of all the electricity generated in Vermont since 1972. There was no danger to the community.  It was just too expensive to operate.  The average age of a U.S. commercial nuclear reactor is 32 years.  

Could this be an end to the fission nuclear era?  Probably not, as the Tennessee Valley Authority Watts Bar 2  (WB 1 came on line in 1996) nuclear generation unit is a year away from operation, and five more are on track for powering up by 2020, all in the South.

According to World Nuclear Association:

Nuclear Power in the USA

(Updated November 2014)

• The USA is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity.
• The country's 100+ nuclear reactors produced 822 billion kWh in 2013, over 19% of total electrical output. There are now 100 units operable and five under construction.
• Following a 30-year period in which few new reactors were built, it is expected that six new units may come on line by 2020, four of those resulting from 16 licence applications made since mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors.
• However, lower gas prices since 2009 have put the economic viability of some existing reactors and proposed projects in doubt.
• Government policy changes since the late 1990s have helped pave the way for significant growth in nuclear capacity. Government and industry are working closely on expedited approval for construction and new plant designs.

So we it is clear that fission nuclear power is making a renaissance.  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will do everything he can to restore as many of the 50 nuclear facilities in Japan as he can, and, frankly, those units are available, so why not use them as a bridge to their future?

Tomorrow, or so, I will present Part 2B:  The Ultimate Energy System.  I can provide a hint of what this will be:

• I worked for Edward Teller at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on nuclear fusion.
• In 1989 I hired possibly the first cold fusion expert at any academic institution when I was director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii.
• I wrote the original legislation in the U.S. Senate for hydrogen.

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IS IT SAFE TO EAT STEAK?

On 16June2014 my posting was entitled:

     EAT BEEF FAT AND ENJOY LIFE

To quote:

Of course, fats from fish and nuts have long been accepted as diet worthy.  There are many kinds of these fats:  saturated, mono saturated, polyunsaturated and trans fats.  This is complicated, but there are good trans fats (in beef) and bad trans fats (chemically produced in a factory when liquid fats are made solid, like sticks of margarine, which are terrible for your health--avoid these with a passion). 

I then went on to say that it is now okay to consume beef fat.  Essentially, the medical profession was switching gears, learning that the fear about consuming steak persuaded people to eat more white rice and white bread.  Turns out that these carbohydrates are immediately converted to sugars in your blood, and some of them become fructose, which is a terrible sugar.

So I further quote from that above posting:

Like the Atkins Diet (low carbs and optimal protein), this big fat surprise will be controversial.  However, it makes some sense, and until I receive compellingly contradictory medical findings, I will now better enjoy my medium rare Japanese wagyu beef (while this posting essentially exonerates saturated fat, it is true that the Japanese beef fat actually has more monounsaturated fat than any American beef, and really, truly, tastes a lot better--but the best ones cost $250/pound* at your standard department store basement there--I took this photo in Mitsukoshi across from my hotel, the Tokyo Westin) meal with a large salad topped with blue cheese dressing. 

Well, our Federal Government is now close to saying, again, that beef is bad, not necessarily for your body, but for Planet Earth.  At least that is what a panel will be advising our Department of Agriculture:  the bottom line is that, first, there are better things to eat than beef, but, when you consider the environment, beef should be avoided.

Here is the evidence--compared to chicken and pork, beef produces more (per calorie):

• carbon dioxide (and methane) and
• water polluting nitrogen,
• while requiring more water.

In other words, sustainability has become a factor in determining what you eat.  I knew about this problem, of course, and continued to consume steak, mostly because I do what I can for Planet Earth, but draw the line at steak.  I only have a few short years left, and, horrors, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I, personally, am too insignificant to matter.  

For essentially the same reason, as my around the world adventures indicate, my carbon footprint is outrageous.  My justification?  On balance, my books, blog and other publications, which purport to Save Planet Earth and Humanity, outweigh the  more than picayune greenhouse gases for which I am responsible.  Life is not perfect, and Al Gore travels more than I do.

So what do you think will happen to beef?  First, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association will educate the U.S. Congress.  Republicans are not as thrilled about the secondary factors regarding the environment.  Second, that Ag panel will still need to write that report.  Then, the various Ag departments will discuss what to do, and, after much deliberation, perhaps craft some new guidelines.  This will all take time.  Beginning this month both houses of Congress will be Republican.  It might take forever for a sustainable food pyramid to become an official Department of Agriculture position.  Mind you, as a meat-lover, even I am now wavering.   Anyway, for now, keep following something like the following:

Those running and walking feet will be the topic of my blog tomorrow.

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OZONI: MY BEST BREAKFAST OF THE YEAR

Two days late on posting my New Year's Day breakfast, but ozoni is the traditional first meal of the year for most Japanese.  In Japan, everyone has her own recipe, and mine is surely one of a kind, mostly because I adjust it every year.  "O" is just an honorific, while the two Japanese characters--zo and ni--stand for mixed and simmered.  

It is said that the tradition goes back to 1336 having something to do with soup served during samurai field battles.  The Tokyo area uses a clear broth featuring dried tuna and seaweed, while the western regions lean towards white miso.  They all add mochi (rice pounded into a pasty shape) and a variety of vegetables depending on what is available during this winter period.  Sumo wrestlers enhanced this concept with high caloric ingredients to gain weight in their standard meal called Chankonabe.

I tend to internationalize and fuse Japanese with American in my cuisine.  My Thanksgiving turkey has an entirely different kind of stuffing.  A better example is my hanami (picnic under cherry blossoms in the Spring), when I generally have a combination similar to beer, sake, musubi and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  

Thus, for my ozoni this year I poured a can of hokigai  (red clam--one small can costs $12), including the liquid portion, into a pot of Campbell's chicken and rice soup, with some dried scallops (the best from Japan is around $100/pound) and shiitake mushrooms.  I simmered on the eve, the most dangerous part of the effort because it is easy to forget about this pot on a hot stove.

Then the next morning I added chinese and mustard cabbages and some green onions, with two pieces of mochi, and a sunny fried egg.  In addition to some hot sake and Kirin beer, I had a chilled Dream Moon junmai daiginjo sake ($37, 16% alcohol) from Ehime Prefecture, in honor of the Ehime Maru, which was accidentally sunk by the USS Greeneville near Pearl Harbor  14 years ago.  I also enjoyed a dish of chu-toro ($35/pound from Marukai).  I could have had nishime, which I forgot was in the refrigerator, so I'll have that with the remainder of the fatty bluefin tuna tonight.

If you are fastidiously discriminating, you might have noticed that can of hokigai right of the sashimi.  That was just pictorial ornamentation and not used to drink my beer.  Next year I'll work in truffles and foie gras to further internationalize this first meal of the year.  Perhaps, too, a fine Bordeaux, or, at least a Beaujolais Nouveau.

So I had the following lanai dinner:

And had a decent sunset:

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SIMPLE SOLUTIONS FOR HUMANITY'S MOST IMPORTANT PROBLEMS: Overview

My whole professional life has been focused on pondering over Humanity's most important problems and determining the simplest solutions.  Incredibly enough, I actually have made valiant attempts at just about all the important ones.  The operative term, unfortunately, is valiant, for nothing much has worked so far, but I dream and deal with the next billion years, so it remains possible that I've planted potentially fruitful seeds here and there.  Last I heard, Planet Earth had at least 1.75 billion years left to be functional.  The book to the left is a compilation of some of my Huffington Post articles on these topics.

There must be hundreds of lists derived by visionaries and responsible groups of what these problems are, and here is just one, from the National Secular Society, a British organization that rejects the supernatural, but does not campaign to eradicate or prohibit religion:

   #10  Species Extinction

  #9    Radical Islam/Terrorism

   #8   War

   #7   Nuclear Proliferation

   #6   Malnutrition and Hunger

   #5   Global Water Crisis

   #4   Global Population Growth

   #3   Peak Oil/Energy Consumption

   #2   Global Economic Collapse

   #1   Global Warming

The World Economic Forum released their ninth insight Report on Global Risks 2014 to improve the State of the World:

   #10   Profound political and social instability

  #9   Failure of a major financial mechanism/institution

     #8   Food crisis

     #7   Global governance failure

     #6   Greater incidence of extreme weather events

     #5   Failure of climate change mitigation and adaption

     #4   Severe income disparity

     #3   Water crisis

     #2   Structurally high unemployment

     #1   Fiscal crises in key economies

As an economic organization, of course it is concerned mostly about the economy.  Environmental associations similarly harp on what ails Planet Earth and gloss over societal systems.  The book to the left selects six survival topics related to Planet Earth.  Others have suggested peak phosphate, decimation of bees, asteroids gamma-ray bursts from a supernova, and THE VENUS SYNDROME, plus many more threats to our existence.

I would like to take all the above, plus the many dozens of others I've seen over the past half century, and crystallize the essence into what  are, truly, Humanity's most critical issues, touched on in my book to the right.   I add another dimension of consideration by plugging into the analysis not only problems, but opportunities.  Through amalgamation, synthesis and simplification, I have arrived at a shorter fundamental list, and over the next few postings, will elaborate on the challenges and provide simple solutions:

   #7   The ultimate energy system

   #6   The Blue Revolution

   #5   Remediation of global warming

   #4   Control of population

   #3   Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence 

   #2   Peace

   #1   What happens when you die?  I might even create a more upbeat title.

The first few concepts can be solved technologically, but there are economic-socio-political constraints that get in the way, becoming fuzzier to #1, which can only be rationalized philosophically.  Concerns about water, food and poverty are linked to population and energy.  The world economy will cycle through  prosperity and depression, but there will ultimately be recovery, again and again.  There is nothing terminal about our economy.  Terrorism, war, and nuclear proliferation are all linked to the attainment of peace.

The B612 Foundation and its successors will handle asteroids and gamma-ray bursts, I hope.  I can't single-handedly solve all the problems of our universe.

   

I will begin with #7 on the ultimate energy system, maybe tomorrow, but certainly by early next week.  I tend to dabble in lighter fare on weekends.

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THE SHAPE OF THINGS OF TO COME IN 2015: Part 2

Scroll down to Part One of what "will" happen on Planet Earth in 2014.  I could only get down to February 1, the 49th Superbowl.  Mind you, these are not necessarily predictions, but some, nevertheless, are:

• February 13:  Fifty Shades of Grey will open.  You don't know any performers, but the movie should do well, for more than 100 million copies have been sold of the book by E.L. James of the UK, featuring a 27-year old billionaire, Christian Grey, and Washington State University student Anastasia Steel.  You can mostly wonder how explicit will be the bondage, sadism and such.  So I hear, anyway, for I haven't read the books.  There are three novels thus far, so that means at least two more sequels.

• February 19:  Chinese New Year, the Year of the Goat or Sheep or Ram.   While, scientifically, goats, sheeps and rams are different species, some consider a Ram to be a male goat or sheep.  In China, it is known as the Spring Festival.  Don't think of taking a train to another city in China at the beginning and end (the official holiday period extends to February 25 in China).  The Lunar New Year has a 4000 year history.  
• There is, for NCAA basketball purists, March Madness, which actually ends in April.  In the USA, only March and August have no holidays and observances. A total solar eclipse occurs on March 20, though you need to be on Svalbard and Faroe Islands:

• There is always April Fool's Day on April 1, which is also the first day of the year in Japan; a partial lunar eclipse takes place on April 4; Major League Baseball begins on April 5, which happens to be Easter this year; and the Thai New Year, or Songkran, from April 13-15, which is a nationwide water fight.  NASA's half a billion dollar Dawn, launched in 2007, arrives near dwarf planet Ceres this month.  Why bother for that cost?  The 45th Earth Day is observed on April 22.  I can actually remember back to 1970 and the leadership of Denis Hayes, who went on to become an adjunct professor at Stanford and director of the Solar Energy Research Institute, now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

• The next Expo begins in Milan, Italy on May 5, and goes on to October 31.  I have attended most of the World Expositions, so now need to plan my next world adventure for the Fall.  Kenji's safari almost alway golfs in California on May 5, which is Cinco de Mayo, when we have more than our share of tequila and many things ethanolic.  The American exhibition has notoriously been embarrassing, especially at the 2010 Shanghai Exposition, and our next fiasco will focus on FOOD.  David Letterman will have his final show on Mar 20:

• Lonely Planet has a list of festivals in England for June, led by Stonehenge, Notting Hill and the country's biggest musical festival at Glastonbury.  Jurassic World will be released on June 12, starring Chris Pratt and...well, that's it, no one else you know.  No reviews yet, but 99% of Rotten Tomatoes audiences loved it.  This is the fourth in the series, 14 years after #3, taking place 22 years after the original Jurassic Park theme park.  Filming actually began at the Honolulu Zoo in the Spring of 2014.  Kauai was also a setting, and I wonder if Spielberg will use clips of Hurricane Iniki when he was there filming in 1992.

• July has Canada Day on the first, America celebrates Independence Day on the fourth, and France, Bastille Day on the 15th, with  the end of Muslim Ramadan on the 16th.  Otherwise, NASA's and the European Space Agency's Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)  Pathfinder will launch in July, is expected to cost around three-quarters of a billion dollars, which automatically means more than a billion, and will measure something called geodesic motion.  Why?  Also this month, New Horizons will fly by Pluto, at a cost of more than half a billion dollars.  Why?  Hint:  the military-industrial complex lobbies well for these "peace/scientific/PR" diversions.   Comic-Con in San Diego  unfolds from July 9-12, and The Big Bang Theory no doubt will organize something.

• The Edinburgh Festival is held in August, and this is an event worthy of your consideration.  Just one facet, the Fringe Arts Festival, is the largest of its kind anywhere.  In 2013 there were 2,871 different shows (stage, film, etc.), and there seems to be no limits to what shows.  The Fringe is one of, perhaps, a dozen or two different other festivals, where much of it is free on the streets.    

• A highlight is the military tattoo (right), which has nothing to do with skin art:

• I have spent several Augusts in Edinburgh, and also golfed at St, Andrews a few times.  The final two weeks of August are best, for it's colder before and after that period.

• In the Orient, Singapore on August 9 will celebrate their Golden Jubilee, for they gained independence from Malaysia 50 years ago.  In Japan, August 6 and 9 mark the 70th anniversary of the Atomic Bomb destructions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It is remarkable how well these cities have recovered.  My recent Fall adventure included visits to each peace park.  Here I am with Fat Man, the device that exploded over the grandest cathedral in Asia.

• On September 13 you will be able to experience a partial Solar Eclipse from Johannesburg, South Africa.  Then on September 28 there will be a Lunar Eclipse, not viewable from Hawaii:

• Everyone should go at least once to Munich's Oktoberfest, which is mostly in September:  September 19 - October 4.  This is the 182nd gathering, said to be the largest fair in the world with 6 million visitors.  Pearl and I went and somehow failed to drink any beer.  Worse, it was raining and very cold.  Basically, there are huge beer barns and tents at a fairground outside of Munich.

• The Rugby World Cup takes place in Newcastle, UK on October 3,9, 10.
• It was 1989, in Back to the Future II, when Marty McFly and Doc Brown fly to the future in a DeLorean time machine, landing in Hill Valley (an oxymoron and mythical city in California...mostly the backlot of Universal Studios) on 21 October 2015.  It's amusing to view the various concept cars like the Ford Probe and Pontiac Fiero as representative of today, and more too, the Jaws 19 hologram.  Note:  18th sequel.

• November has Peanut Butter Lovers Month and National Sleep Comfort Month, plus some bizarre days, including those featuring, devil eggs, housewives, sandwiches, King Tut, Guy Fawkes, Veterans, Chicken Soup for the Soul, National Indian Pudding, Sadie Hawkins,Clean Your Refrigerator, Buttons, World Peace, Cranberries, Thanksgiving and Stay at Home Because You Are Well...30 of them in all.

• The next exercise in hopelessness occurs from November 30 to December 11 in Paris, known as the United Nations Climate Change Conference.  This will be #21 or #11, depending on what you are counting.  The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was monumental, except that the USA, China and India refused to participate.  Since then, the effort has maintained a course of meaningless somnambulism.  

• Star Wars, episode VII, the Force Awakens, the American epic space opera, opens on December 18.  Here, it's eleven months away, but Rotten Tomatoes audiences already have rated it at 99%.  Many of the originals (Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, for example, and Chewbacca is back) reprise original roles.  The previous six films have earned almost $4.5 billion.

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