Aviation takes almost one quarter of the UK national fuel budget, which all told adds-up to an annual equivalent of 57 million tonnes of imported oil. As supplies of conventional crude oil decline, the problem will present itself of how to keep the entire transportation sector running, and probably air-travel will decline, as a luxury that can be cut-back upon without impacting significantly on the quality of human life: e.g. cheap foreign holidays might be deemed less important than essential road-transport - getting people to work and the carriage of vital goods such as food. As I have discussed in many of these postings, the horizon that appears to me is one of a relocalisation of society (and indeed civilization) into small communities that are provided for by local farms and local businesses, in consequence of a serious shortfall in fuel, which therefore would eliminate much of our demand for cars etc.
This is a longer-run view, and I think that getting exactly to this point might take two decades or so, meanwhile airline companies are discussing how indeed their planes might be fuelled as the standard petroleum-based fuel (kerosene) becomes shorter in supply and increasingly expensive. Ethanol is one possibility, but it has the unfortunate property of absorbing water and consequently corrodes parts of the engine and fuel-lines, while the other contender, biodiesel, becomes extremely viscous either in cold weather or at the low temperatures encountered in-flight, e.g. around minus 50 degrees C at typical cruising altitudes of around 36,000 feet (around 11 kilometers, and below the stratosphere over most parts of the Earth, other than above its polar regions). There is also the problem that even by severely compromising food production - growing fuel-crops not food-crops - an equal to the present quantity of fuel derived from oil could not be met, not even for road transport, let alone aircraft.
The airline-giant company Boeing has released an 8 page report in which are extolled the virtues of a biodiesel made from algae. As has been discussed in some previous postings on Energy Balance, the apparent advantage of making biodiesel from algae rather than from crops is that perhaps 100 times more of it could be produced per hectare, whereupon the proposition does begin to look like a possibility. However, the site oilgae (link to the top left here) discusses the various difficulties that must be circumvented before this could become a reality. It is hence, another untested technology on the grand scale, although I remain optimistic that it could contribute to the final energy mix we will employ in the future. There are also fears that since the type of algae necessary will be a very tough and competitive strain, it could "escape" and contaminate the wider world, resulting in toxic algal blooms that are not readily controlled by nature.
Boeing envisages three distinct timescales over which alternative fuels could be introduced: near, mid-range and long-term. In the near term, a "drop-in" fuel is required, with which to substitute for regular fuel as soon as possible. It is thought that this might be a blend of kerosene and synthetic diesel produced by the Fischer-Tropsch process - i.e. from coal-liquefaction, or from synthesis gas generated by steam-reforming natural gas (principally methane). However, since peak-gas will follow peak-oil in just a few years, it would be a poor decision to rely on it as a source of fuel for very long. It is also significant that net CO2 emissions are double that from burning conventional fuel, when such synthetic fuel is employed, summing-up the carbon released in its manufacture and its final combustion. In the mid-term, 10 -50 years, Boeing proposes that biofuels will contribute more as a final percentage of jet fuel in a mix with synthetic diesel (Jet-A, or standard jet fuel). This does beg the question, as noted above, of where precisely this would come from. Ultimately, in our localised "society, in its state of "Oil-Dearth", growing food will be a more pressing issue than growing the number of runways at Heathrow Airport, say.
In short, it looks like a black-hole of fuel in general, from which the long-term view appears the most promising vista. On this note, Boeing are highly encouraging:
"With the potential for algae of providing 10,000 gallons/acre per year [...that's about 100 tonnes per hectare], some 85 billion gallons of bio-jet could be produced on a land-mass equivalent to the size of the US state of Maryland. Moreover, if these bio-jet fuels were fully compatible with legacy [existing] aircraft, it would be sufficient to supply the present world's fleet with 100% of their fuel needs (fig. 13) as well into the future."
However, would we not still need to produce large quantities of a blending fuel i.e. from coal-liquefaction, in order to maintain a manageable viscosity at the low operating temperatures? Boeing do not mention this, however, and so while details are sparse, they may have a jet-fuel up their sleeve with appropriate properties to meet that 100% as they claim.
Certainly, this would be a major breakthrough, and perhaps more details will be forthcoming, which I await with interest. Of further note is that the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, has applied for worldwide patents to genetically-modify microbes with which to manufacture hydrogen and biofuels. The idea is that a very basic "stripped-down" microbe could be created by joining together blocks of about 50 letters, to make about 500 genes in half a million letters of DNA, and growing it in the "gut-bacteria" E coli. These many small pieces can be joined into a handful of bigger ones until finally two pieces can be assembled into the circular genome of a new life form. The synthetic DNA would then be added to a test-tube of bacteria from which, it is hoped, one out of one hundred billion would begin to move, metabolise and multiply.
Canadian ETC spokesman, Jim Thomas called on the world's patent offices to reject the applications, saying:
"These monopoly claims signal the start of a high-stakes commercial race to synthesise and privatise synthetic life-forms. Will Venter's company become the 'Microsoft' of synthetic biology?" One of his colleagues, Pat Mooney, remarked: "For the first time, God has competition. Venter and his colleagues have breached a societal boundary, and the public hasn't even had a chance to debate the far-reaching social, ethical and environmental implications of synthetic life."
Related Reading.
(1) www.greenoptions.com/blog/2007/06/08/algae_biofuel_may_be_future_for_aviation, by Clayton Bodie Cornell, article "Algae Biofuel may be future for aviation."
(2) "Man-made microbe 'to create endless biofuel'", by Roger Highfield: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml
Monday, June 11, 2007
Friday, June 08, 2007
China Water Supply lost as Tibetan Glaciers Melt.
The environmental group Greenpeace has warned that the melting of Tibet's glaciers could close-off water supplies to large parts of China. For example, Sichuan Province, in south-western China, relies on water from the Tibetan peninsular. The Qinghai-Tibet highland spans most of western China, and global-warming is driving the retreat of glaciers there, forcing the evaporation of glacial and snow run-off, and leaving rivers short of water and clogged with the silt that is usually dispersed under conditions of normal flow. At Kanding, which is several hundred kilometers from Jiuzhaigou, the evidence of climate change and rising temperatures is clear, in its effect on the glaciers. Research shows that the Tibetan plateau is melting at around 7% per year, an alarming statistic since its glaciers provide almost half (47%) of total glacial coverage in China, and its melt-waters feed the Yellow, Yangtze and many other rivers that supply water to hundreds of millions among its 1.4 billion total population.
These are rivers that are in some parts already under considerable environmental pressure from industrial pollution. "Cancer clusters" have been identified, that are thought to be related to the discharge of arsenic, mercury and other noxious materials into rivers without due care and regard to environmental laws. Water too, is an essential resource for coal-liquefaction technologies, which the Chinese intend to expand to meet the massive fuel needs of their expanding economy, with another 20 million cars expected on its roads by 2020.
A report by Greenpeace claims that: "Climate change is the major factor leading to the overall ecological degradation in the region while localised human activities such as industry and agriculture, have aggravated the situation." The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers an area of 2.5 million kilometers (ten times the area of the UK mainland) - roughly a quarter of China's land surface; the latter being equivalent to the area covered by the arable land of North America - at an altitude of 4,000 m above sea-level. Greenpeace have cited one forecast (probably the worst) that Tibet and its environs could experience the disappearance of 80% its glacial coverage by 2035.
Conservationists working in the region point out that climate change can mean global warming but cooling in some areas too, and that each can influence rainfall and snowfall dramatically. The accumulation of waters from melting glaciers can build-up into huge "dams" that then "burst" so endangering the lives of those living down-stream. Researchers from Greenpeace who made a survey of the slopes of Mount Everest during the past two years noted that local herders were not seeing a greater abundance of water from the melting glaciers. Rather, the increased evaporation and accumulation of water in unstable glacial lakes appear to be making rivers less predictable and more dangerous.
According to a Tibetan monk who has lived on the lower slopes of Everest for many years: "Now winter is as hot as summer. The weather change is obvious."
Related Reading.
"China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glaciers melt," by Clifford Coonan, The Independent, 31 May 2007.
These are rivers that are in some parts already under considerable environmental pressure from industrial pollution. "Cancer clusters" have been identified, that are thought to be related to the discharge of arsenic, mercury and other noxious materials into rivers without due care and regard to environmental laws. Water too, is an essential resource for coal-liquefaction technologies, which the Chinese intend to expand to meet the massive fuel needs of their expanding economy, with another 20 million cars expected on its roads by 2020.
A report by Greenpeace claims that: "Climate change is the major factor leading to the overall ecological degradation in the region while localised human activities such as industry and agriculture, have aggravated the situation." The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers an area of 2.5 million kilometers (ten times the area of the UK mainland) - roughly a quarter of China's land surface; the latter being equivalent to the area covered by the arable land of North America - at an altitude of 4,000 m above sea-level. Greenpeace have cited one forecast (probably the worst) that Tibet and its environs could experience the disappearance of 80% its glacial coverage by 2035.
Conservationists working in the region point out that climate change can mean global warming but cooling in some areas too, and that each can influence rainfall and snowfall dramatically. The accumulation of waters from melting glaciers can build-up into huge "dams" that then "burst" so endangering the lives of those living down-stream. Researchers from Greenpeace who made a survey of the slopes of Mount Everest during the past two years noted that local herders were not seeing a greater abundance of water from the melting glaciers. Rather, the increased evaporation and accumulation of water in unstable glacial lakes appear to be making rivers less predictable and more dangerous.
According to a Tibetan monk who has lived on the lower slopes of Everest for many years: "Now winter is as hot as summer. The weather change is obvious."
Related Reading.
"China's water supply could be cut off as Tibet's glaciers melt," by Clifford Coonan, The Independent, 31 May 2007.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Shadow of Nuclear War Returns to Europe.
President Putin has warned the US that were it to go ahead in deploying a new anti-missile network across Europe, Russia would be urged to aim its own nuclear missiles at European cities. Presumably this is really a warning to Europe not to permit the US to install part of its strategic nuclear defenses in our nations, or be prepared to accept any consequences, if we do. Likely locations are Poland and the Czech Republic, on the grounds that they would be well placed there to shoot-down any missiles fired from Iran. One wonders at whom? Putin has expressed a sharp skepticism at this, arguing that there are no such missiles: "Iran does not have missiles with the range", he said - again, I wonder to strike where? Putin speculated that the real motive from the US is to provoke Russia into retaliatory action and drive a wedge between it and Europe.
I imagine it sticks in the Russian craw too, that until less than 20 years ago, both Poland and the Czech Republic were under the Communist banner, and having "relinquished" them to Europe, now it might appear that the US are annexing them, a term with the most sensitive and unfortunate connotations within the context of Russian/European history, i.e. the aftermath of WWII. British relations with Russia are rather strained too, in view of the request that Andrei Lugovoy be extradited to stand trial in the UK for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, reputedly a Russian-spy and bizarrely poisoned with plutonium-210 in a scenario that reads like a James Bond novel. I doubt Ian Fleming could have invented a more outrageous plot. Tony Blair wishes a conference with Mr Putin at the G8 summit, and it would appear they have much to discuss as, were Russia to accede to the UK's request, it would require an amendment to the Russian Constitution, which presently does not allow a Russian citizen to be extradited for trial in any other country.
Putin has not entirely eliminated that this might be done should the weight of evidence so demand it, but he is unconvinced that there is presently sufficient reason for such a dramatic move. Neither did he offer any compromise regarding the particular cases of British oil-giants Shell and B.P., both of whom have had the terms of their contracts for oil-investments in Russia rewritten in the light of alleged breaches in their licenses. One cannot help but feel that an example is being made of them. Mr Putin insists that he seeks "cooperation not confrontation", and lays blame squarely with the US for its intransigence. He called on "our American friends to rethink their decision (about putting nuclear missiles in Europe, that is), and warned that "we cannot be responsible for our reciprocal steps because it is not us who is initiating an arms race in Europe."
He added: "We will need to establish such systems which would be able to penetrate the [US] missile defense systems..." Mr Putin also implied that, in retaliation, Russia might veto agreements to curb conventional forces too: "What kind of means will be used to hit the targets that our military believe are potential threats - ballistic missiles, or cruise missiles, or some kind of new defense system? We see that Eastern Europe is being filled with new equipment, two positions in Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Radar in the Czech Republic, and missile systems in Poland. What is happening? Unilateral disarmament of Russia is happening."
It took a good forty years to attain the level of peace that now exists in Europe; from which a return to the days of the "cold war" is surely unthinkable, especially to those who actually live here.
Related Reading.
"Putin raises spectre of nuclear war in Europe," The Times, June 4th, 2007.
I imagine it sticks in the Russian craw too, that until less than 20 years ago, both Poland and the Czech Republic were under the Communist banner, and having "relinquished" them to Europe, now it might appear that the US are annexing them, a term with the most sensitive and unfortunate connotations within the context of Russian/European history, i.e. the aftermath of WWII. British relations with Russia are rather strained too, in view of the request that Andrei Lugovoy be extradited to stand trial in the UK for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, reputedly a Russian-spy and bizarrely poisoned with plutonium-210 in a scenario that reads like a James Bond novel. I doubt Ian Fleming could have invented a more outrageous plot. Tony Blair wishes a conference with Mr Putin at the G8 summit, and it would appear they have much to discuss as, were Russia to accede to the UK's request, it would require an amendment to the Russian Constitution, which presently does not allow a Russian citizen to be extradited for trial in any other country.
Putin has not entirely eliminated that this might be done should the weight of evidence so demand it, but he is unconvinced that there is presently sufficient reason for such a dramatic move. Neither did he offer any compromise regarding the particular cases of British oil-giants Shell and B.P., both of whom have had the terms of their contracts for oil-investments in Russia rewritten in the light of alleged breaches in their licenses. One cannot help but feel that an example is being made of them. Mr Putin insists that he seeks "cooperation not confrontation", and lays blame squarely with the US for its intransigence. He called on "our American friends to rethink their decision (about putting nuclear missiles in Europe, that is), and warned that "we cannot be responsible for our reciprocal steps because it is not us who is initiating an arms race in Europe."
He added: "We will need to establish such systems which would be able to penetrate the [US] missile defense systems..." Mr Putin also implied that, in retaliation, Russia might veto agreements to curb conventional forces too: "What kind of means will be used to hit the targets that our military believe are potential threats - ballistic missiles, or cruise missiles, or some kind of new defense system? We see that Eastern Europe is being filled with new equipment, two positions in Bulgaria and Romania, as well as Radar in the Czech Republic, and missile systems in Poland. What is happening? Unilateral disarmament of Russia is happening."
It took a good forty years to attain the level of peace that now exists in Europe; from which a return to the days of the "cold war" is surely unthinkable, especially to those who actually live here.
Related Reading.
"Putin raises spectre of nuclear war in Europe," The Times, June 4th, 2007.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Water - the new Oil?
Cheap light crude oil production has already peaked and the resource will have all but gone within a decade. This raises the shadow of the intermediary era that spaces now from then - plenty from dearth - a highly uncertain transitional period within which either by design or default we must gear-down our use of transportation, since there is no alternative technology that could be brought on-stream in time (if ever) to match the gargantuan 30 billion barrels of oil that are used by the world each year to quench its thirst for liquid fuel and essential chemical raw materials for industry.
This might be thought bad enough, but water too is a resource that in the present profligate manner of its use will begin to run-short within foreseeable decades. I have just been sent a new book entitled "Mirage" and written by Cynthia Barnett, which focusses on water-use in the United States and in Florida particularly. The present article is my review of it, as requested by its publishers (The University of Michigan Press). Years ago I read "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck which draws-out in painful detail the tribulations of families trying to survive in the dust-bowls of the mid-west during the Great Depression era of the 1930's, struggling toward California in a search for jobs and land, but mostly land... on which crops would grow. It is well known that to the east of the longitudinal line along the 100th meridian rainfall is plentiful, while to the west of it the climate is relatively arid. Indeed it was once believed that farmers in the "east" would never have to worry about watering their crops, but in recent years demand for water has surged with calamitous environmental consequences.
Barnett is an experienced journalist and a reporter for Florida Trend Magazine, and her investigative and journalistic skills are aptly suited to handle this important topic. In the first part of the book, she outlines the history of water and development in the US reflecting back from an opening scene from 1981 where a house falls into a "sinkhole", which is a collapse in the limestone rock that underlies Florida as a consequence of its natural dissolution by underground water, but which can be opened-up as a result of human activities such as highway construction, excavation of "fill-dirt" (gravel), well -drilling and especially the excessive pumping of groundwater.
She discusses the complex politics involved in "development", and the overpopulation of that southern tip of the Florida peninsular particularly by retirees ("seniors"), thus requiring an infrastructure - including very green and hence heavily watered lawns and golf-courses etc. - of an extent that surpasses even what can be provided by the greatly abundant rainfall there. Meeting the shortfall necessitates the extraction of groundwater on a huge scale with environmental, economic, political and social consequences, including at least one death as she describes in the chapter "Water Wars". Indeed the history of water-supply in the United States is wryly inscribed in the quotation (attributed to Mark Twain), "whiskey's for drinkin' and water's for fightin'."
A central theme in the book is of water as a commodity. Often the real costs of water provision are borne by states or municipalities rather than by corporations, who cash-in on a cheap resource for which no regard is consequently engendered, nor for the environmental actions such as damming rivers as mighty as the Colorado for various "aquatic" projects. Bottled "spring" water is an immensely priced-up designer toy, costing around 10,000 times as much as tap water and often with much the same analytical composition. Not all spring-water does in fact come from a spring, and is to a large degree once again that good old pumped groundwater.
I am ashamed to say I had not heard of the Ogallala aquifer, despite the fact that it flows for 174,000 square miles under the great plains from South Dakota to the Texas panhandle, and it is the main source of water for the US collective national breadbasket, supplying as it does one third of all the groundwater used for irrigation in the entire country. However, Ogallala is not replenished as most aquifers are. Instead it contains "fossil water", set down from the melt of the last ice-age 10,000 years ago. Put another way, once it is gone it is gone, and the analogy with a vast oil-field could hardly be closer. Access to cheap electric pumps in the 1950's permitted farmers to draw this legacy upward at increasing rates and to the extent that the Ogallala has fallen by 100 feet in parts of New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma ("Grapes of Wrath" territory) and Texas. It is inevitable and a mere matter of time that all wells sunk into this huge aquifer will run dry. Not good I presume for the US corn-crop which is increasingly being grown to provide corn-ethanol in that desperate exercise we are all of us involved in, to resolve the issues of how we will survive in the "Oil Dearth" era, as world supplies of crude-oil run relentlessly short.
The Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) technology is given especial mention. The idea is that during wet-periods, when water is plentiful, water is pumped into gigantic underground aquifers set deep into Florida's limestone, and which can be pumped-up again during dry months. Some 36 million gallons a day are sucked from Peace River, which starts in Central Florida's Green Swamp and ends 105 miles further south in the Charlotte Harbour Estuary. There are almost 1,700 ASR wells in the US altogether, most of them in the states of California, Nevada, Texas and Florida, all particularly short of water. However, caution is urged, certainly that a decent hydrogeological survey is forked-out for, as the first well sunk at Peace River became seriously contaminated with arsenic, present naturally in the aquifer.
Desalination is another technology often invoked as a solution to water-shortages especially in near-coastal regions, even though it is very costly to set up a desalination plant in the first place, and it takes a lot of energy to run one; nor is the technology guaranteed. A $110 million plant at Tampa Bay suffered all kinds of difficulties and finally the high-tech membranes required to separate water from salt by reverse-osmosis clogged up. However, groundwater pumping was reduced by one third in the region anyway without using one drop of desalinated water, purely through more conventional means of reservoir and surface water treatment combined with aggressive water-conservation measures. Now this takes us on neatly to the final chapter entitled "redemption and the river of grass".
I found this chapter truly inspirational, since it refers to possible solutions to the problem which are based around taking a more respectful approach to our environment. Some wonderful human stories are mentioned, such as that of Clyde Butcher, who turned his son's tragic death into a positive campaign for the choking Everglades, through his photography, and began a change in attitude which may save the day. What Barnett writes about water and how we might preserve our world by giving it due respect applies as well to all the other resources we are now plundering into extinction.
As an active poet, I appreciated her choice of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" to quote from rather than "The rime of the ancient mariner" as it usually done when seeking some cultural reference to "water", since the context is much closer in its "A stately pleasure-dome decree" to the problem of inexorable human demand on nature in the fallacious assumption of limitless growth while draining resources that are only all too limited. In conclusion, this is a most informative and timely book and I am grateful to Mary Bisbee-Beck at The University of Michigan Press for giving me the opportunity to review it.
Professor Chris Rhodes, Independent Consultant on Energy and Environment Issues.
This might be thought bad enough, but water too is a resource that in the present profligate manner of its use will begin to run-short within foreseeable decades. I have just been sent a new book entitled "Mirage" and written by Cynthia Barnett, which focusses on water-use in the United States and in Florida particularly. The present article is my review of it, as requested by its publishers (The University of Michigan Press). Years ago I read "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck which draws-out in painful detail the tribulations of families trying to survive in the dust-bowls of the mid-west during the Great Depression era of the 1930's, struggling toward California in a search for jobs and land, but mostly land... on which crops would grow. It is well known that to the east of the longitudinal line along the 100th meridian rainfall is plentiful, while to the west of it the climate is relatively arid. Indeed it was once believed that farmers in the "east" would never have to worry about watering their crops, but in recent years demand for water has surged with calamitous environmental consequences.
Barnett is an experienced journalist and a reporter for Florida Trend Magazine, and her investigative and journalistic skills are aptly suited to handle this important topic. In the first part of the book, she outlines the history of water and development in the US reflecting back from an opening scene from 1981 where a house falls into a "sinkhole", which is a collapse in the limestone rock that underlies Florida as a consequence of its natural dissolution by underground water, but which can be opened-up as a result of human activities such as highway construction, excavation of "fill-dirt" (gravel), well -drilling and especially the excessive pumping of groundwater.
She discusses the complex politics involved in "development", and the overpopulation of that southern tip of the Florida peninsular particularly by retirees ("seniors"), thus requiring an infrastructure - including very green and hence heavily watered lawns and golf-courses etc. - of an extent that surpasses even what can be provided by the greatly abundant rainfall there. Meeting the shortfall necessitates the extraction of groundwater on a huge scale with environmental, economic, political and social consequences, including at least one death as she describes in the chapter "Water Wars". Indeed the history of water-supply in the United States is wryly inscribed in the quotation (attributed to Mark Twain), "whiskey's for drinkin' and water's for fightin'."
A central theme in the book is of water as a commodity. Often the real costs of water provision are borne by states or municipalities rather than by corporations, who cash-in on a cheap resource for which no regard is consequently engendered, nor for the environmental actions such as damming rivers as mighty as the Colorado for various "aquatic" projects. Bottled "spring" water is an immensely priced-up designer toy, costing around 10,000 times as much as tap water and often with much the same analytical composition. Not all spring-water does in fact come from a spring, and is to a large degree once again that good old pumped groundwater.
I am ashamed to say I had not heard of the Ogallala aquifer, despite the fact that it flows for 174,000 square miles under the great plains from South Dakota to the Texas panhandle, and it is the main source of water for the US collective national breadbasket, supplying as it does one third of all the groundwater used for irrigation in the entire country. However, Ogallala is not replenished as most aquifers are. Instead it contains "fossil water", set down from the melt of the last ice-age 10,000 years ago. Put another way, once it is gone it is gone, and the analogy with a vast oil-field could hardly be closer. Access to cheap electric pumps in the 1950's permitted farmers to draw this legacy upward at increasing rates and to the extent that the Ogallala has fallen by 100 feet in parts of New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma ("Grapes of Wrath" territory) and Texas. It is inevitable and a mere matter of time that all wells sunk into this huge aquifer will run dry. Not good I presume for the US corn-crop which is increasingly being grown to provide corn-ethanol in that desperate exercise we are all of us involved in, to resolve the issues of how we will survive in the "Oil Dearth" era, as world supplies of crude-oil run relentlessly short.
The Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) technology is given especial mention. The idea is that during wet-periods, when water is plentiful, water is pumped into gigantic underground aquifers set deep into Florida's limestone, and which can be pumped-up again during dry months. Some 36 million gallons a day are sucked from Peace River, which starts in Central Florida's Green Swamp and ends 105 miles further south in the Charlotte Harbour Estuary. There are almost 1,700 ASR wells in the US altogether, most of them in the states of California, Nevada, Texas and Florida, all particularly short of water. However, caution is urged, certainly that a decent hydrogeological survey is forked-out for, as the first well sunk at Peace River became seriously contaminated with arsenic, present naturally in the aquifer.
Desalination is another technology often invoked as a solution to water-shortages especially in near-coastal regions, even though it is very costly to set up a desalination plant in the first place, and it takes a lot of energy to run one; nor is the technology guaranteed. A $110 million plant at Tampa Bay suffered all kinds of difficulties and finally the high-tech membranes required to separate water from salt by reverse-osmosis clogged up. However, groundwater pumping was reduced by one third in the region anyway without using one drop of desalinated water, purely through more conventional means of reservoir and surface water treatment combined with aggressive water-conservation measures. Now this takes us on neatly to the final chapter entitled "redemption and the river of grass".
I found this chapter truly inspirational, since it refers to possible solutions to the problem which are based around taking a more respectful approach to our environment. Some wonderful human stories are mentioned, such as that of Clyde Butcher, who turned his son's tragic death into a positive campaign for the choking Everglades, through his photography, and began a change in attitude which may save the day. What Barnett writes about water and how we might preserve our world by giving it due respect applies as well to all the other resources we are now plundering into extinction.
As an active poet, I appreciated her choice of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" to quote from rather than "The rime of the ancient mariner" as it usually done when seeking some cultural reference to "water", since the context is much closer in its "A stately pleasure-dome decree" to the problem of inexorable human demand on nature in the fallacious assumption of limitless growth while draining resources that are only all too limited. In conclusion, this is a most informative and timely book and I am grateful to Mary Bisbee-Beck at The University of Michigan Press for giving me the opportunity to review it.
Professor Chris Rhodes, Independent Consultant on Energy and Environment Issues.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Digging-up the Family Silver (...Platinum etc).
We live on a planet with finite resources, and yet use them up with alacrity in the false assumption of limitless growth. I read a recent statistic that "if all the world's 500 million vehicles in use today were re-equipped with fuel cells, operating losses would mean that all the world's platinum would be exhausted within 15 years." In a previous posting, I estimated that there were probably around 35,500 tonnes of platinum available as a reserve on Earth, 90% of it in two mines in South Africa and most of the rest in Russia. Hence, each vehicle would account for 35,500 tonnes x 1000 kg/tonne x 1000 g/kg /500,000,000 = 71 grams of platinum. For 700 million of them, as I understood the figure to be, this amounts to 51 grammes each.
In my article "Platinum Barrier to Fuel Cells", I worked-out, assuming that pledged technology (here we go again!) would come to our rescue, that there is enough platinum at a putative 12 g per "highly improved" fuel cell to supply 3 billion cars, but the real problem is that only relatively limited quantities of platinum can be produced each year, and so other resources (principally oil) will have run-out long before we might replace our oil-fuelled fleet by fuel-cell driven cars. This ignores the likely prohibitive difficulty in inaugurating the infrastructure for the hydrogen to run them with. Either way platinum is a scarce and precious resource and cannot be counted upon to match current and continuing demands for it. Contemporary fuel-cells contain around 50 - 100 g of platinum each, which is close to the above estimates.
Currently, even in the absence of fuel-cells, around 40% of the world's platinum is used in catalytic-convertors (CC's) to keep levels of exhaust gases such as NOx down, which is coincidently the same amount as is used to make jewelry. It is fascinating that the "dust" and litter routinely swept off the streets may contain of the order of parts per million (ppm) of platinum, emitted into the air from the platinum-based catalysts that are the heart of CC's, similar to the 3 ppm typical of the ores in the South African platinum mines. It may therefore be feasible to "mine" the dust from road-sweeping machines to recover its platinum.
Platinum is only one of the elements likely to run-short in a few decades or so. Indium, used for solar cells and LCD's may run-out in 10 years, impending a further need to develop alternative photo-voltaic (PV) technology, beyond the difficulty in providing enough pure-silicon to fabricate silicon-based cells on the grand scale. Dye-cells (e.g. Gratzel-cells) begin to look particularly attractive, even if the "dyes" will be made from oil, emphasising the terrible waste of simply burning oil as a fuel, when we also need it as a chemical feedstock. In my opinion, it would be more to the point to preserve as much conventional crude oil as possible as a raw material for chemical manufacture, because what will our industries use otherwise once it has gone, or is absurdly too expensive to use?
Some salient points are made by the following list of elements, world total reserve of each, their time of exhaustion based on current rates of production and main uses for them:
Aluminium, 32,350 million tonnes, 1027 years (transport, electrical, consumer durables)
Arsenic, 1 million tonnes, 20 years (semiconductors, solar cells)
Antimony, 3.86 million tonnes, 30 years (some pharmaceuticals and catalysts)
Cadmium, 1.6 million tonnes, 70 years (Ni-Cd batteries)
Chromium, 779 million tonnes, 143 years (chrome plating)
Copper, 937 million tonnes, 61 years (wires, coins, plumbing)
Germanium, 500,000 tonnes (US reserve base), 5 years (semiconductors, solar cells)
Gold, 89,700 tonnes, 45 years (jewelry, "gold-teeth")
Hafnium, 1124 tonnes, 20 years? (computer chips, power stations)
Indium, 6000 tonnes, 13 years? (solar-cells and LCD's)
Lead, 144 million tonnes, 42 years (pipes and lead-acid batteries)
Nickel, 143 million tonnes, 90 years (batteries, turbine-blades)
Phosphorus, 49,750 million tonnes, 345 years ( fertilizer, animal feed)
Platinum/Rhodium, 79,840 tonnes, 360 years for Pt (jewellery, catalysts, fuel-cells, cat-convs.)
Selenium, 170,000 tonnes, 120 years (semiconductors, solar cells)
Silver, 569,000 tonnes, 29 years (jewellery, cat.-convs.)
Tantalum, 153,000 tonnes, 116 years, (cell-phones, camera-lenses)
Thallium, 650,000 tonnes, 65 years (High Temperature Superconductors, Organic Reagents)
Tin, 11.2 million tonnes, 40 years, (cans, solder)
Uranium, 3.3 million tonnes, 59 years (nuclear power stations and weapons)
Zinc, 460 million tonnes, 46 years (galvanizing).
These figures are based on known reserves and of course more might be found if it were explored for. However, new technologies are likely and the developing nations are aspiring to a "Western Lifestyle" so minerals are being exhausted at a relentlessly growing rate.
It is predicted that if new technologies do appear and with the growth in world population, some key resources will be used up quite rapidly, e.g.:
Antimony, 15 - 20 years.
Hafnium, 10 years.
Indium, 5 - 10 years.
Platinum, 15 years.
Silver, 15 - 20 years.
Tantalum, 20 - 30 years.
Uranium, 30 - 40 years.
Zinc, 20 - 30 years.
It is worth observing that the distribution of these minerals is of course uneven, as I noted above about platinum, and the US currently imports 90% of its "rare earth" metals from China. We know all too well also that most of the world's oil is in the Middle East. In concluding this posting I am left with a sense of living on borrowed-time.
Related Reading.
(1) David Cohen, "Earth Audit", New Scientist, 26th May 2007, p. 35.
(2) http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/
In my article "Platinum Barrier to Fuel Cells", I worked-out, assuming that pledged technology (here we go again!) would come to our rescue, that there is enough platinum at a putative 12 g per "highly improved" fuel cell to supply 3 billion cars, but the real problem is that only relatively limited quantities of platinum can be produced each year, and so other resources (principally oil) will have run-out long before we might replace our oil-fuelled fleet by fuel-cell driven cars. This ignores the likely prohibitive difficulty in inaugurating the infrastructure for the hydrogen to run them with. Either way platinum is a scarce and precious resource and cannot be counted upon to match current and continuing demands for it. Contemporary fuel-cells contain around 50 - 100 g of platinum each, which is close to the above estimates.
Currently, even in the absence of fuel-cells, around 40% of the world's platinum is used in catalytic-convertors (CC's) to keep levels of exhaust gases such as NOx down, which is coincidently the same amount as is used to make jewelry. It is fascinating that the "dust" and litter routinely swept off the streets may contain of the order of parts per million (ppm) of platinum, emitted into the air from the platinum-based catalysts that are the heart of CC's, similar to the 3 ppm typical of the ores in the South African platinum mines. It may therefore be feasible to "mine" the dust from road-sweeping machines to recover its platinum.
Platinum is only one of the elements likely to run-short in a few decades or so. Indium, used for solar cells and LCD's may run-out in 10 years, impending a further need to develop alternative photo-voltaic (PV) technology, beyond the difficulty in providing enough pure-silicon to fabricate silicon-based cells on the grand scale. Dye-cells (e.g. Gratzel-cells) begin to look particularly attractive, even if the "dyes" will be made from oil, emphasising the terrible waste of simply burning oil as a fuel, when we also need it as a chemical feedstock. In my opinion, it would be more to the point to preserve as much conventional crude oil as possible as a raw material for chemical manufacture, because what will our industries use otherwise once it has gone, or is absurdly too expensive to use?
Some salient points are made by the following list of elements, world total reserve of each, their time of exhaustion based on current rates of production and main uses for them:
Aluminium, 32,350 million tonnes, 1027 years (transport, electrical, consumer durables)
Arsenic, 1 million tonnes, 20 years (semiconductors, solar cells)
Antimony, 3.86 million tonnes, 30 years (some pharmaceuticals and catalysts)
Cadmium, 1.6 million tonnes, 70 years (Ni-Cd batteries)
Chromium, 779 million tonnes, 143 years (chrome plating)
Copper, 937 million tonnes, 61 years (wires, coins, plumbing)
Germanium, 500,000 tonnes (US reserve base), 5 years (semiconductors, solar cells)
Gold, 89,700 tonnes, 45 years (jewelry, "gold-teeth")
Hafnium, 1124 tonnes, 20 years? (computer chips, power stations)
Indium, 6000 tonnes, 13 years? (solar-cells and LCD's)
Lead, 144 million tonnes, 42 years (pipes and lead-acid batteries)
Nickel, 143 million tonnes, 90 years (batteries, turbine-blades)
Phosphorus, 49,750 million tonnes, 345 years ( fertilizer, animal feed)
Platinum/Rhodium, 79,840 tonnes, 360 years for Pt (jewellery, catalysts, fuel-cells, cat-convs.)
Selenium, 170,000 tonnes, 120 years (semiconductors, solar cells)
Silver, 569,000 tonnes, 29 years (jewellery, cat.-convs.)
Tantalum, 153,000 tonnes, 116 years, (cell-phones, camera-lenses)
Thallium, 650,000 tonnes, 65 years (High Temperature Superconductors, Organic Reagents)
Tin, 11.2 million tonnes, 40 years, (cans, solder)
Uranium, 3.3 million tonnes, 59 years (nuclear power stations and weapons)
Zinc, 460 million tonnes, 46 years (galvanizing).
These figures are based on known reserves and of course more might be found if it were explored for. However, new technologies are likely and the developing nations are aspiring to a "Western Lifestyle" so minerals are being exhausted at a relentlessly growing rate.
It is predicted that if new technologies do appear and with the growth in world population, some key resources will be used up quite rapidly, e.g.:
Antimony, 15 - 20 years.
Hafnium, 10 years.
Indium, 5 - 10 years.
Platinum, 15 years.
Silver, 15 - 20 years.
Tantalum, 20 - 30 years.
Uranium, 30 - 40 years.
Zinc, 20 - 30 years.
It is worth observing that the distribution of these minerals is of course uneven, as I noted above about platinum, and the US currently imports 90% of its "rare earth" metals from China. We know all too well also that most of the world's oil is in the Middle East. In concluding this posting I am left with a sense of living on borrowed-time.
Related Reading.
(1) David Cohen, "Earth Audit", New Scientist, 26th May 2007, p. 35.
(2) http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/
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