The milestone could lead to tiny devices that harvest electrical energy from the vibrations of everyday tasks, something that could charge your phone as you walk for example.

Berkley Lab Viurs Electric Piezoelectric Energy Generator

The Berkeley Lab scientists describe their work in the May 13 advance online publication of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Seung-Wuk Lee, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and a UC Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering and colleagues wondered if a virus studied in labs worldwide offered a better way. The M13 bacteriophage only attacks bacteria and is benign to people. Being a virus, it replicates itself by the millions within hours, so there’s always a steady supply. It’s easy to genetically engineer. And large numbers of the rod-shaped viruses naturally orient themselves into well-ordered films, much the way that chopsticks align themselves in a box.

These are the traits that scientists look for in a nano building block. But the Berkeley Lab researchers first had to determine if the M13 virus is piezoelectric. Lee turned to Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and a professor of materials sciences, engineering, and physics at UC Berkeley, an expert in studying the electrical properties of thin films at the nanoscale. They applied an electrical field to a film of M13 viruses and watched what happened using a special microscope. Helical proteins that coat the viruses twisted and turned in response – a sure sign of the piezoelectric effect at work.

Next, the scientists increased the virus’s piezoelectric strength. They used genetic engineering to add four negatively charged amino acid residues to one end of the helical proteins that coat the virus. These residues increase the charge difference between the proteins’ positive and negative ends, which boosts the voltage of the virus.

The scientists further enhanced the system by stacking films composed of single layers of the virus on top of each other. They found that a stack about 20 layers thick exhibited the strongest piezoelectric effect.

The only thing remaining to do was a demonstration test, so the scientists fabricated a virus-based piezoelectric energy generator. They created the conditions for genetically engineered viruses to spontaneously organize into a multilayered film that measures about one square centimeter. This film was then sandwiched between two gold-plated electrodes, which were connected by wires to a liquid-crystal display.

When pressure is applied to the generator, it produces up to six nanoamperes of current and 400 millivolts of potential. That’s enough current to flash the number “1″ on the display, and about a quarter the voltage of a triple A battery.

The scientists tested their approach by creating a larger generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display. It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with the specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the finger tap into an electric charge.

Their generator is the first to produce electricity by harnessing the piezoelectric properties of a biological material. Piezoelectricity is the accumulation of a charge in a solid in response to mechanical stress.

The research also points to a simpler and very important insight for making microelectronic devices. That’s because the viruses arrange themselves into an orderly film that enables the generator to work. Self-assembly is a much sought after goal in the finicky world of nanotechnology.

Lee said, “More research is needed, but our work is a promising first step toward the development of personal power generators, actuators for use in nano-devices, and other devices based on viral electronics. We’re now working on ways to improve on this proof-of-principle demonstration. Because the tools of biotechnology enable large-scale production of genetically modified viruses, piezoelectric materials based on viruses could offer a simple route to novel microelectronics in the future.”

The piezoelectric effect has a lot of potential, its been known since 1880.  The effect has turned up in crystals, ceramics, bone, proteins, and DNA. It’s already been put to use in simple personal devices like electric cigarette lighters and very high technology scanning probe microscopes that rely on the effect to function. There are more of these simple yet ultra reliable devices about than most folks realize.

Its great to see another route to piezoelectric power and to see the nasty nemesis of humanity, the virus, put to useful work for a change.  But the big clue maybe the potential of self assembly, where virus applications could further miniaturize devices and reduce their need for electric power.

Now if they’d just manage to engineer virus to defeat the viruses of the common cold, herpes and AIDS.

The novel form of catalytic nickel-molybdenum-nitride is described in a paper published online May 8, 2012 in the journal Angewandte Chemie, International Edition.

Hydrogen gas offers one of the most promising sustainable fuel alternatives. But traditional methods of producing pure hydrogen face significant challenges in unlocking its full potential, either by releasing carbon dioxide when its sourced from natural gas or requiring rare and expensive chemical elements such as platinum hwne sourced from water by electrolysis.

The new electro catalyst surprised the scientists with its high-performing nanosheet structure, introducing a new model for effective hydrogen catalysis.

Brookhaven's Nickel Molybdenum Nitride Catalyst for Splitting Water

Brookhaven Lab chemist Kotaro Sasaki, who first conceived the idea for this research explains, “We wanted to design an optimal catalyst with high activity and low costs that could generate hydrogen as a high-density, clean energy source. We discovered this exciting compound that actually outperformed our expectations.”

Background – Water provides an ideal source of pure hydrogen its abundant and free of harmful CO2 gas byproducts. The electrolysis of water, or splitting water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2), requires electric current and an efficient catalyst to break chemical bonds while shifting around the protons and electrons. To justify the effort, the amount of energy put into the reaction must be as small as possible while still exceeding the minimum required by thermodynamics, a figure associated with what is called ‘overpotential’.

For a catalyst to facilitate an efficient reaction, it must combine high durability, high catalytic activity, and high surface area. The strength of an element’s bond to hydrogen determines its reaction level, if its too weak, and there’s no activity; too strong, and the initial activity poisons the catalyst.  Unfortunately, the strongest traditional candidate for electro catalytic activity, platinum, comes with a prohibitive price tag.

Platinum is the top material for electro catalysis, combining low overpotential with high activity for the chemical reactions during water-splitting. But with rapidly rising costs, already hovering around $50,000 per kilogram, platinum and other noble metals discourage widespread use
.
James Muckerman, the senior chemist who led the project takes up the explanation with, “People love platinum, but the limited global supply not only drives up price, but casts doubts on its long-term viability. There may not be enough of it to support a global hydrogen economy.”
The principal metals in the new compound developed by the Brookhaven team are both abundant and cheap: $20 per kilogram for nickel and $32 per kilogram for molybdenum – that’s 1000 times less expensive than platinum. But with energy sources, performance is often a more important consideration than price.

“We needed to create high, stable activity by combining one non-noble element that binds hydrogen too weakly with another that binds too strongly. The result becomes this well-balanced Goldilocks compound – just right.”  That simple explanation makes clear what the team managed to do.

In the new catalyst, nickel takes the reactive place of platinum, but it lacks a comparable electron density. The scientists needed to identify complementary elements to make nickel a viable substitute, and they introduced metallic molybdenum to enhance its reactivity. While effective, it still couldn’t match the performance levels of platinum.

Now research associate Wei-Fu Chen, the paper’s lead author takes up the explanation, “We needed to introduce another element to alter the electronic states of the nickel-molybdenum, and we knew that nitrogen had been used for bulk materials, or objects larger than one micrometer. But this was difficult for nanoscale materials, with dimensions measuring billionths of a meter.”

The scientists expected the applied nitrogen to modify the structure of the nickel-molybdenum, producing discrete, sphere-like nanoparticles. But they discovered something else.

Subjecting the compound to a high-temperature ammonia environment infused the nickel-molybdenum with nitrogen, but it also transformed the particles into unexpected two-dimensional nanosheets. The nanosheet structures offer highly accessible reactive sites and more reaction potential.

Using a high-resolution transmission microscope in Brookhaven Lab’s Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, as well as x-ray probes at the National Synchrotron Light Source, the scientists determined the material’s 2D structure and probed its local electronic configurations.

“Despite the fact that metal nitrides have been extensively used, this is the first example of one forming a nanosheet,” Chen said. “Nitrogen made a huge difference – it expanded the lattice of nickel-molybdenum, increased its electron density, made an electronic structure approaching that of noble metals, and prevented corrosion.”

The new Brookhaven catalyst performs nearly as well as platinum, achieving electro catalytic activity and stability unmatched by any other non-noble metal compounds. “The production process is both simple and scalable,” Muckerman said, “making nickel-molybdenum-nitride appropriate for wide industrial applications.”

While this catalyst does not represent a complete solution to the challenge of creating affordable hydrogen gas, it does offer a major reduction in the cost of essential equipment. The team emphasized that the breakthrough emerged through fundamental exploration, which allowed for the surprising discovery of the nanosheet structure.

This is really good news.  Currently most industrial hydrogen is sourced from natural gas so coming up with a competitive water based source is quite useful.  Even as natural gas is at a very low price, the hydrogen needed could grow if the price could be driven furthr down.

For many experimenters aluminum has been the electro catalyst of choice.  Getting the new Brookhaven material out into the hands of the thousands of experimenters making Browns Gas.  The new material could be a step into much more and more efficient hydrogen use.

The official document’s prime comment is, “During the course of the (previous) contracted study several anomalies related to how electrons were fed into the device were discovered.  These anomalies must be characterized and solutions created if the device is to be made functional.”

The time and funds are then, “ . . . additional effort will require the incumbent contractor to further their studies by employing independently powered electron gun arrays . . .”

The status is given quite a lift with, “A committee of distinguished scientists reviewed the progress of EMC2’s work to provide a recommendation to the Office of Naval Research (ONR) on the merits of the project.  The committee consists of internationally recognized, independent experts in the field of magnetically confined energy producing devices.  These committee members are qualified independent scientific and academic experts who were designated by ONR to evaluate and provide impartial opinions on the research done by EMC2.  The committee validated the progress made by EMC2.  The experimental results to date were consistent with the underlying theoretical framework of the Polywell fusion concept and, in the opinion of the committee, merited continuation and expansion.”

Artists rendering of WB-8. Click image for the largest view.

Tom Ligon offered in view of the anomalies most likely being a matter of the machine’s scale, “Way back in the early 90′s they thought there would be two ways to build a wiffle-ball. One was to inject the electrons and then build up the magnetic field. That’s not the easiest power control problem but it certainly can be done and is an option.”

Dr. Bussard wanted to build the demonstration machine because he understood the potential trouble in pushing electrons into the small Wiffle Ball devices. In a larger machine, the electrons would predominantly come from the ionization of fuel.  This puts EMC2 in the position to solve problems for the smaller devices that won’t be relevant for devices that fill out the theory to scale.

Readily admitted, your humble writer has a soft spot for Dr. Bussard the Polywell method to confine and Bussard’s theory to drive fusion.  Its elegant, and the single most intuitive method to drive nuclei past the Coulumb barrier.

Bussard had a great idea to take the work of Farnsworth to overcome the electric repulsion the electromagnetic force to get close enough for the attractive nuclear strong force to take over fusing the particles together and releasing the energy.  Bussard was also first to realize that fusing pB-11, a gas of Boron would release highly electrically charged atoms instead of vast amounts of heat – so producing a vast amount of electric power. So far, and we’re pretty far along, Dr. Bussard has been right and pretty accurate as well.

That makes the news of the review and the added time and funds very reassuring.  There isn’t a surprise that the little WB-8 needs help in getting the electrons loaded, Dr. Bussard knew this would happen.  But bureaucratic funding is going to check each step and that’s no surprise as well.

The news is good, the steps are getting made, progress should come to an irrefutable demonstration device in a few years, and net power from fusion will be a done thing.

More waiting, but every step will have the design and engineering worked out – and that will be worthwhile later on.

The energy source for the future … RF Accelerator Driven Heavy Ion Fusion Power

There is a solution to the energy need for the world and the US without generating green house gases or nuclear fission radioactive problems.

It is Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) as developed in the late 1970′s at Argonne National Lab under the Department of Defense (DOD).

You never heard of it, … right, few people have, … as HIF was set aside by the US DOD (& DOE) in favor of lasers, as lasers could maybe be a weapon and HIF could not be a weapon.

Fusion was first suggested as a potential power source in the late 1920’s. The first earth-bound fusion reaction was demonstrated in 1952. Then shown potentially doable in a small size in 1978-9 at Argonne National Lab and Hughes Lab. Since then it has been endorsed for 35 years by the scientific community “as the conservative way to go” to develop fusion as an energy generation source … but never funded, as it was and is still BIG (expensive, prolific and “benign”). In 1980, the world did not need a BIG new source of energy, as it does now. Fusion was put on the shelf or attached to research projects to see if it could be done in small (MW-GW) size. Fusion cannot be done small and be economical. Data suggests that fusion can produce 5-7 cents kWh electricity, $3.20 per/gal fuel, and $0.002 per gallon for potable water, all needed today and at a very reasonable unit price.

Fusion Power's Process and System Heat Block Diagram. Click image for the largest view.

In 2009, Fusion Power Corporation with Dr. Robert J. Burke and Dr. Charles E. Helsley, secured a patent using heavy ions as the energy source to fuse the Hydrogen isotopes Deuterium and Tritium producing Helium and heat. It solves the problems that Germany, Russia, America and Japan were having in focusing enough energy on the pellet (target) to cause fusion to occur.

In December 2010, the process was presented at the 18th HIF International Symposium in Darmstadt, Germany, along with an economic model, by Fusion Power Corporation (FCP)l.

In May of 2011, FPC presented the process to the Accelerators for Heavy Ion Fusion Workshop (AHIF) at Berkeley CA, sponsored by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the Virtual National Lab (DOD & DOE). Again, the result was “now is the time to move forward” with a fusion program … as there is now a world need for a large new carbon free energy source.

The science has been done and it now is an engineering process. FPC’s process applies known and existing technologies in unique and novel ways to provide the energy necessary for fusion to occur. FPC’s fusion power is more developed than was rocketry in 1961 when JFK committed the nation (US) to go to the moon and back.

FPC is an engineering design, implementation and licensing company. FPC’s mission is to provide the energy necessary for maintaining current levels of energy use (standard of living) and to provide opportunities for growth in the energy supply using fusion. FPC’s vision is the development of a fusion power source based on the use of the techniques of radio frequency (RF) accelerator-driven Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) that were researched in the 1970′s; a technique that has repeatedly received scientific endorsement.

FPC’s primary goal is to translate the science vetted design of a RF accelerator-driven fusion power system to one that can be brought on-line within a decade – each installation having an energy output equivalent to that of a giant oil field without the depletion problem and located where needed.

FPC can also be eligible for carbon credits, as FPC can produce per day, 500,000 barrels of a carbon neutral synthetic liquid fuel (diesel-kerosene-gasoline), 15 GW electric, and 2000+ ac/ft of potable water from sea water, all with no GHGs, no highly radioactive waste and no potential for a “run-away” nuclear meltdown.

By 2050, fusion will be the source of most of the world’s energy. This is not wishful thinking, it is simply a way of stating that all other forms of energy that are based on the use of finite fossil fuel sources must decline in the next few decades. This decline will provide a major impetus for the rapid increase in the utilization of this new form of energy. Wind, solar and bio fuels are only “feel good solutions” of “we are doing something to solve the problem” when have little possibility of generating the 14 TW needed in the next 40 years. I can show you the math.

HIF is the ONLY practical answer for non-proliferation of atomic weapons and maybe the real way to world peace … non-aggression for national energy supplies and national security.

Let us get moving to really solve the energy problem … not 35 more years of research!

For more information and detail of the FPC HIF process visit http://www.fusionpowercorporation.com and see the You Tube presentations “StarPower for Tomorrow” and Goggle Tech Talk “Heavy Ion Fusion”.

Inquires may be sent to: contact@fusionpowercorporation.com

Your humble writer spent some time on the FPC website and found it quite thorough in covering the main topics of interest. What’s missing is the process graphic of a reaction and an economic synopsis easy enough to grasp by major media types. It is an engaging site, rich in information.

The ‘other hand’ so to speak is the FPC power plant would be huge, and the investment as well.  While the facts at hand bear out the potential, and the numbers imply that a couple hundred plants would power the entire planet, an installation would need a deuterium supply, adequate water, room for an accelerator, proximity to a major grid interconnect, carbon sources, room for a huge synfuels plant and market access for unloading a half million barrels of liquid fuels.

This is a very tall order – without a pilot or demo unit, and that would be a very expensive undertaking on its own.  Still, unless the innovators can come up with very cheap small fusion processes, the FPC idea has to get up front both economically with a drive to confirmation and product cost reductions.

The Heavy Ion Fusion idea definitely has the legs, and when its gets to commercial viability the investment is going to be billions.  But it’s one way to get the equivalent of a giant oil field without it ever running dry.

Natural gas prices range from $1.49 to $2.59 in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.  This is far less than gasoline.

Honda builds a Civic Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sedan and has been selling a few of these natural gas vehicles in select markets for years.

At $4.00 gasoline the natural gas equivalent is running $2.50 in the higher priced markets.  That was back in May of 2011 when Mark Koebrich at Denver’s 9NEWS interviewed David Padgett, a Honda CNG owner.

Padgett said, “It’s costing me one-third of the cost of commuting with gasoline as it does to commute with natural gas. I wouldn’t drive anything else. If I was buying gasoline, it would have cost me over $30 to fill up this car. The actual cost of the natural gas was about $12, and if I do it in my garage, it’s going to be about $4.”

Another lure is you can install a natural gas hook-up at home in the garage from your utility gas line. You pull the hose from the wall and refuel at home for a fraction of the commercial station price. It’s almost that simple.

Padgett concludes, “You’ll burn natural gas when you can, and if you need to back it up with gasoline, it’s there for you as well. Same engine – no difference.”

Ford Super Duty Available with Compressed Natural Gas Fueling

The catch is one needs two fuel tanks.  Not something you add on at home.  But the manufacturers are catching on.  Ford’s CNG trucks have been available since 2009. Dual-fuel sedans are expected to follow in the 2013 model year. GM is offering two pickup models and a dual-fuel Ram Heavy Duty truck production model of the Dodge Ram has a load-bearing compressed natural gas tank immediately behind the cab with the normal gas tank in the usual place.

That’s the US Big Three Automakers plus Honda.  OK – two cars builders and three pickup truck makers is a major start.

But the big opportunity is application to large trucks.  Trucks have the room and the capacity to carry two fuel loads.  Various plans are popping up to line the interstate system with CNG filling stations. For diesels adding CNG injection is more complex, but the fuel cost savings would quickly recover the investment when a truck is traveling over one hundred thousand miles a year.

Once a part or combination of the plans gets underway the rest of use could seriously look for natural gas duel fuel vehicles.  With some careful planning a home served with natural gas may justify the piping and compressing for home filing.

Many pundits believe CNG technology will catch on over the next few years, just as hybrids are beginning to now. Toyota Motor Sales more than doubled hybrid sales in April (compared to last year), on the heels of over 50,000 hybrids of all makes selling in March.

There is less doubt about the supply of natural gas than the gasoline and diesel supply and assuming the government stays out of the way that should last for years, perhaps decades. If the methane hydrates supply of natural gas can be tapped cheaply the supply would last tens of centuries.

The flex fuel option has been a smart choice for years, hybrids the cost conscious choice more recently and CNG looks to be the next big thing.

On the other hand, pretty soon ‘dual fuel’ might be redundant – just make CNG cars and call it done could come pretty quickly with a price advantage driving the switch.

Chevron's Pacific Santa Ana Drillship. Click image for the largest view.

Able to work in 2 1/3rd miles deep water and over seven miles into the earth the new ship is a world leader.  Named the Pacific Santa Ana the ship was built to Chevron’s specifications under a five-year contract with a subsidiary of Pacific Drilling S.A.  She’s headed for the Gulf of Mexico.  After additional equipment is installed and tested, Pacific Santa Ana will be used for exploratory and development drilling in the deepwater of the gulf.

Deepwater Drlling Prewssures With and Without Dual Gradient Design. Click image for the largest view.

Dual Gradient Drilling (DGD) employs two weights of drilling fluid (link to a Chevron presentation pf file).  Conventional drilling on land and at sea uses a single drilling fluid weighted with additives in the borehole.  DGD uses two weights of drilling fluid – one above the seabed, another below. This allows drillers to more closely match the pressures presented by nature and effectively eliminates water depth as a consideration in well design. DGD also allows drillers to more quickly detect and appropriately react to downhole pressure changes, which can enhance the safety and efficiency of deepwater drilling operations.

Deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico and other parts of the world including West Africa and the Caspian Sea are challenging due to the narrow pore pressure/fracture gradient environment. The DGD system gives operators a tool to manage the downhole environment while drilling, resulting in longer casing strings and/or larger diameter completions. The DGD system increases drilling efficiency while lowering mechanical risk and well costs.

The Pacific Santa Ana is equipped with a DGD riser, a mud-lift pump handling system, six mud pumps – three for drilling fluid and three for seawater – extensive fluid management system enhancements and more than 72,000 feet of DGD-related cables.

Chevron's new GE Built Mud Lift Pump. Click image for the largest view.

A key element of the system is the MaxLift 1800 mud-lift pump from GE. To achieve a dual gradient, flow from a well being drilled is diverted to the MaxLift 1800 pump, which is located above the blow out preventer and pumps the cuttings-laden mud back to the drilling vessel in an auxiliary line.

The riser is then filled with seawater density fluid, so the reservoir “feels” as if the rig is located on the seabed (that means essentially that the pressures are neutral at the seafloor taking out the pressure that causes a blowout to flow oil out to the environment) since the MaxLift pumps prevent the hydrostatic pressure of the mud from being transmitted back to the wellbore. The new GE pump can deliver up to 1,800 gpm at discharge pressures up to 6,600 psi and can handle solids up to 1.5 inches in diameter.

The consultation firm Stress Engineering Services report for the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement in 2011 (a pdf download) explored the risk profile of DGD, noted that DGD is a variation and a subset of Managed Pressure Drilling (MPD), which is a drilling tool that is intended to resolve chronic drilling problems including well stability and well control incidents.  MPD is intended to mitigate the risks and costs associated with drilling wells that have narrow downhole environmental limits by proactively managing the annular hydraulic pressure profile.

In the executive summary of the Stress Engineering Services report the firm points out, “Prior to April 20, 2010 (the date of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion), the question of a catastrophic event was not a matter of “if”, but “when”. Drilling operations in a deepwater environment is an expensive endeavor. It is expensive for a number of reasons, but the chief reasons are to protect human life, equipment, and the wellbore in a very inhospitable environment. In a single pressure gradient environment (conventional drilling), it is easy to depart from the drilling window because of the narrow drilling window between the pore pressure and the formation fracture pressure. The Dual Gradient Drilling System re-establishes a margin of safety not obtainable in a single gradient system. Even the popular variant of Managed Pressure Drilling called Constant Bottomhole Pressure falls short of providing all of the well control benefits associated with DGD.”

“The most impressive aspect of Dual Gradient Drilling is that it is as safe or safer than current conventional drilling techniques AND provides for full riser margin, where the well is fully controlled in the event of riser disconnect AND problem wells can be drilled and completed instead of abandoned either with cement plugs or in a file labeled “TOO RISKY TO DRILL – TECHNOLOGY NOT AVAILABLE”.”

“…While there are risks associated with any drilling operation, deepwater well control is enhanced with DGD. Environmental episodes are also minimized. In the event of an emergency disconnect from the wellhead, seawater or a similarly compatible fluid dissipates into the surrounding water AND the well is under control because the hole is full of properly weighted drilling mud. DGD is like having a rig on the seabed floor. The riser margin is intact. It does not matter if the water depth is 5,000 feet or 15,000 feet, should the riser become disconnected, the well will be dead.”

One has to give Chevron credit for raw courage, something not seen in big corporate environments.  Its likely the commitment for the building of the Pacific Santa Ana predated the BP Deepwater Horizon event, still Chevron has pressed on and is still pressing on in the face of a government playing shiftlessly on permits and permissions going so far as to deny pipeline applications.  One cannot say with any honesty that the industry has held back on investing in producing oil.

Now, to rephrase the words of Stress Engineering, TECHNOLOGY IS AVAILABLE.  Chevron is first with the Pacific Santa Ana and there are more ships readied to drill more wells even deeper.

Farnesene is a 15-carbon isoprenoid hydrocarbon molecule that works as the basis for a wide range of products as varied from specialty chemical applications to transportation fuels such as diesel. When used as a fuel precursor, farnesene can be hydrogenated to farnesane, which has a high cetane number of 58.

Amyris Pilot Scale Fermentation Suite

Amyris is presenting a summary of the results at the 34th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals in New Orleans, Louisiana.  The project comes from a U.S. Department of Energy funded renewable diesel effort.

Sweet Sorghum in Cultivation. Click image for the largest view.

The pilot-scale project uses both the free soluble sugars and the cellulosic biomass sugars from Ceres’ sweet sorghum hybrids grown in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Tennessee. To process the soluble sugars that accumulate in the plants, the sorghum juice was first extracted from the stems and concentrated into sugar syrup by Ceres. Then Amyris then processed the syrup at its California pilot facility using its proprietary yeast fermentation system that converts plant sugars into its trademarked product, Biofene.

The DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) converted the leftover biomass from Ceres’ hybrids into cellulosic sugars at its Colorado pilot-scale biochemical conversion facility, which Amyris subsequently fermented into renewable farnesene.  That put almost the entire plant into the fuel precursor.

Secondary products from the Amyris biorefinery project include lubricants, polymers and other petrochemical substitutes. These secondary products are derived from the same C15 farnesene fermentation intermediate as the Amyris Renewable Diesel, providing opportunities to reduce risk in commercial production.

Spencer Swayze, Ceres director of business development said, “We believe that sweet sorghum could be an important and complementary source of fermentable sugars as the U.S. expands the production of renewable biofuels and biochemicals through the use of non-food crops outside of prime cropland. As an energy crop, sweet sorghum is an impressive producer of low-cost, fermentable sugars. A second stream of sugars from the biomass would be highly compelling.”

Sweet sorghum as a dedicated energy crop has a number of advantages. Its fast growing and can efficiently produce both large amounts of fermentable sugars and biomass. The plants require substantially less fertilizer than sugarcane, and can be grown in drier areas because it utilizes water more efficiently.

Todd Pray, Amyris director of product management said, “The results from these evaluations confirmed that the Amyris No Compromise renewable diesel production process performs well across different sugar sources. Ceres’ sweet sorghum hybrids produced sugars that yielded comparable levels of farnesene as sugarcane and other sugar sources Amyris has utilized. Sweet sorghum can provide timely feedstock flexibility with environmental benefits. We look forward to utilizing Ceres’ sweet sorghum in our commercial-scale production facilities.”

Amyris Sweet Sorghum to Diesel Process Diagram. Click image for the largest view.

The primary product of the Amyris IBR is Amyris Renewable Diesel, an advanced biofuel registered for use by the US EPA and covered by an issued US patent.

This news is likely a serious step into building a middle distillate range of bio hydrocarbons.  Amyris is already working with Total in Brazil working on a 50:50 joint venture company that will have exclusive rights to produce and market renewable diesel and jet fuel worldwide, as well as non-exclusive rights to other renewable products such as drilling fluids, solvents, polymers and specific bio-lubricants. The venture aims to begin operations in the first quarter of 2012.

As for the numbers, which seem to be proprietary, Amyris is scaling up its Biofene production in Brazil, Europe and the United States through various production arrangements with six known to be in hand.  Going for the investment at scale indicates that something commercial is worth putting in significant money.

The Ceres feedstock could bring mass production.  What the production rates are hasn’t been disclosed yet.  But as commercial scale efforts get further underway and efforts to acquire land and farming skill commitments – the values are sure to leak out.  How sweet sorghum compares to cotton, peanuts, corn and soybeans is yet to be seen.  To be competitive the prices have to support the production switch for terms long enough for the investments to payback and profit producers.

With a great cetane number and no sulfur the diesel product would be very desirable.

One would expect that a built molecule such as Amyris makes for a middle distillate would be more costly than a derived one coming from crushed seed oils and other sources. Time will tell, and the energy rich compression ignition engine will live on.

The building blocks the group specializes in actually are a recently developed, increasingly versatile class of materials known as metal-organic frameworks (MOF).  An emerging technology in the scientific community, MOFs are porous crystalline polymers made up of metal ions or metal-containing components and organic ligands.

MOF Example From Texas A&M. Click image for more info.

Zhou says, “It’s very fair to say that, in the last decade, the fastest-growing field in chemistry is the study of metal-organic frameworks. The MOF field was formed only about 15 years ago, but it has already shown a lot of promise. We are just one of many teams worldwide working with this exciting new type of material, because the scope of the research is enormous.”

Zhou and his team focus on MOF’s ability to selectively capture carbon dioxide from the exhaust of coal-fired power plants. Though coal is a cheap natural resource, its long-term and widespread use has been a main contributor to the rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Zhou notes that capturing carbon dioxide using MOF, coupled with proper sequestration and/or utilization, not only would slow down the escalation of greenhouse gas levels but also allow power plants to continue using inexpensive coal.

Zhou explains that while MOFs come in a huge number of varieties, only a fraction is suitable for carbon capture. Finding that fraction and then maximizing its potential represents the crux of the tedious yet vital chore facing Zhou and his team.

Compounding the complicated matter of piecing together the correct framework is the fact that only a handful of places worldwide conduct large-scale tests on carbon-capture techniques, given the energy industry’s somewhat understandable reluctance to implement such experimental, power-sapping processes. Zhou explains that even the most current state-of-the-art carbon-capture procedure would lead to a 30 percent parasitic power consumption, thereby significantly reducing the power plant’s overall efficiency.

Zhou’s group may have found the alternative. He said they are in the process of constructing a unique subset of MOF that can capture carbon dioxide with extremely high selectivity while using much less power than what is required by commonly applied carbon-capture methods. The group’s goal is to create an MOF that binds only with carbon dioxide and is robust enough to withstand the harsh conditions of the flue gas, resulting in a more economical carbon-capture technique. If successful, it could significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide currently being emitted into the atmosphere.

With good progress at hand Zhou readily admits the work with carbon-capturing MOF is far from finished. He says his group’s next big undertaking will be to determine if carbon dioxide can be separated from a flue gas – the exhaust from chimneys, ovens and steam generators – using MOF. In addition, he says there is much more research to be conducted with MOF’s ability to store hydrogen and methane, efforts which will continue into the indefinite future.

The MOF future does look bright, indeed.  Zhou said, “In terms of the scope of potential application of MOF, we have barely scratched the surface,” noting beyond carbon capture, MOFs may become useful in gas separation in general.

“Using this new material, the gasses would come in, and the ones that are the right size would stay, while the others would pass. Separation can be performed at a fraction of the original cost using cryo-distillation,” Zhou explains, “Normally in the chemical and petroleum industry, one of the most energy-intensive procedures is the separation of gases, considering you have to liquefy them by compressing and then cooling them. Then you have to do distillation by evaporating and cooling what you wanted to separate. It’s a total waste of energy.”

Beginning in the 1990s, MOFs have been seen with a bright future as an eco-friendly technology that could provide for major improvements in natural gas usage for transportation and in the commercialization of hydrogen-powered vehicles. In their crystalline form, they appear to resemble nothing more than ordinary table salt.

Looks, however, are deceiving, considering MOF have the highest internal surface area known to man. Once unraveled, one sugar-cube-sized piece could cover an entire football field.

In addition to having exceptionally high porosity, Zhou says they are the most tunable material of any known substance. With just a tweak of their crystalline structure and surface properties, they become ideal for absorbing any type of different molecule, lending to their versatility in application.

MOF technology is perhaps still a gestational field.  As noted above the possible combinations to make MOFs is astonishing.  The ‘break’ Zhou is experiencing is a solid step to the breakthrough. But the work is not just find a set of MOFs that work with CO2 at the situations demand, but the MOF has to be made, commercially, flush freed of the CO2 cheaply and last a long time.  Finding that could take a while.

But Zhou is leading the field.  His group is zeroing in a on a highly useful application.  And the application is soon to be much more important than greenhouse gas when the media and populace realize CO2 is the circulation system of life on earth.

As Al Fin pointed out yesterday natural gas is priced to a barrel of oil equivalent at about $10-$11 per the estimable Geoffrey Styles view, something less than 10% of the cost of oil.  For North Americans adding a viable and hopefully low cost means to make use of gas hydrates could be giant boost to low cost fuel sources and a massive kick to the economy.

For experts the methane hydrates resource is the largest reserve of hydrocarbons in the planetary crust. So far humanity has not devised a process to economically harvest this immense energy wealth. Today’s DOE announcement may point the way to a new era in abundant energy to build out a bigger and better world economy.

By injecting a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen into a methane hydrate formation (pdf link) on Alaska’s North Slope, the DOE partnering with ConocoPhillips and Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp was able to produce a steady flow of natural gas in the first field test of the new method. The test was done from mid-February to about mid-April this year.

Methane Hydrate Test Site Map of US DOE, CononcoPhillips and JOGMNC Process Test. Click image for more info.

The department said it would likely be years before production of methane hydrates becomes economically viable. Secretary Chu said in his statement,  “While this is just the beginning, this research could potentially yield significant new supplies of natural gas.”

Methane hydrates are cold ice crystal-like structures that contain methane the chemical of natural gas. The hydrates are located under the Arctic permafrost and in ocean sediments along the continental shelf and widely spread worldwide.

Methane Hydrate Resources per Der Spiegel. Click image for the largest view.

Gerald Holder, dean of the engineering program at University of Pittsburgh, who has worked with the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory on the hydrate issue, said before the announcement he had been skeptical about what researchers would be able to accomplish.

He said the main problem until now was finding a way to extract natural gas from solid hydrates without adding a whole lot of steps that made the process too expensive, which makes the success of this new test significant.

“It makes the possibility of recovering methane from hydrates much more likely. It’s a long way off, but this could have huge impact on availability of natural gas,” said Holder.

While everyone is suggesting that methane hydrate production is some time in the future, we might note that a partner is from Japan, a country that has been buying via imports virtually all its energy and fuel inputs.  A glance at the map of potential reserves shows that Japan may well pour on the intellectual and financial power to get results much quicker than many expect.

On the other hand, for North Americans natural gas is ratcheting down to dirt cheap, with more resources with the new horizontal drilling and reserve fracturing available on land and significant amounts of natural gas at sea in already developed areas.

For everyone the matter of coming up with the CO2 for the injection is going to be a significant issue.  First just gathering it remains a significant problem.  Making it from – natural gas – is the preferred method today.  That raises the question if the CO2 injected is lost to sequestration or is it recycled for reuse, or what proportion is being lost or recycled?  CO2 is very useful and it may become a valuable resource in its own right very soon.

Abundance makes a lot of things that weren’t viable at a price possible at lower costs.  Abundant fission or cold fusion could make electrolysis viable freeing hydrogen for adding to coal for both liquid fuels and CO2 sources.  Scaling could make such concepts usual and common thinking very quickly.

For now though the DOE and partner’s news is very gratifying.  It must be giving the futurists at OPEC an OMG moment, again.  Things are going to be changing.

Lets hope the DOE and the partners spill some more info soon so we can have a better look.

Fission Energy Patterson Lake Uranium Prospect Property. Click image for the largest view.

The Fission exploration follows a find by Hathor Exploration Ltd..  But Fission has a much superior land holding and their find so close to Hathor, which is following the Hathor strike suggests that Fission may have the bulk of the uranium reserve.

Uranium Core Sample Racks. Click image for the largest view.

Fission is chasing a 2011 high-grade uranium boulder field discovery in hopes of finding the originating vein of basement bedrock holding the hoped for reserve.  This past winters drill program appears to have successfully refined the boundaries of the uranium boulder field source target area to the west of Canada’s Patterson Lake.  Where those high-grade radioactive uranium rich boulders on the surface came from is the million-dollar question.

Fission Energy is only the latest in a series of high-grade uranium discoveries in the Athabasca region of Canada.

Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, India, may have one of the largest reserves of uranium in the world.  India has been importing uranium to fuel its nuclear power plants from across the world.  A new processing plant has been commissioned to handle the new discovery – or more accurately, upgrade on the known reserve.

New studies indicate that Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh is endowed with one of the largest uranium reserves in the world, some 10 times the original estimates. They have shown that the Tummalapalle location in the district could have reserves of 150,000 metric tons of uranium.

The reserve in India is very different from the Canadian one. Instead of base rock laden with uranium the Indian reserve is dolomite limestone based uraniferous ore.  The Indian effort follows the 2004 discovery of the uranium ore.

Botswana in Africa is also a new hotbed of activity.  The first discovery came in 2006 with the Lethlakane deposit near Serule.  This is no small project either, with a 261-million-pound uranium oxide resource at a grade of 150 parts per million in the rock.  The district exploration is still early as well.  Three other new deposits and a new emerging discovery at the Red Hills prospect have started exploration.

The Lekabolo deposit, discovered in 2010, is at an advanced exploration stage, although a resource is yet to be defined. Drilling indicates that the deposit has the potential to host about five million pounds of uranium oxide at a grade of 150 ppm, a similar grade to that of the Letlhakane deposit, only 20 km (12.5 miles) away.

Small deposits have been found at Mosolotsane and Morolane, each probably hosting about two million pounds of uranium oxide at a similar grade to that of Lekabolo.

An even more curious discovery is at Red Hills.  Here is a large alteration system that indicates large uranium bearing mineralized systems occuring in rocks much older than the Karoo-aged sandstone and mudstone at Letlhakane.  The large Red Hills alteration system is about 1 km × 1.5 km and about 200 m thick. It contains a significant amount of low-grade rare-earth elements and uranium, as well as base and precious metals, namely lead, zinc and silver.

The operating company Impact Minerals calls the Red Hills area a ‘halo’ that could be pointing to a large high-grade uranium deposit. The system may be similar to the high-grade uranium deposits found in similar aged rocks in the Athabasca basin of Canada, which hosts some of the world’s largest and highest-grade uranium mines.

Meanwhile in the major exporting country Kazakhstan, Inkai, a joint venture between Canada’s Cameco Corp. and Kazakhstan’s state-run miner Kazatomprom, is seeking the Kazakh government’s approval by the end of this year to boost uranium output by 33 percent.  Inkai wants authorization to increase production from 1,500 metric tons to 2,000 tons.

Inkai is feeling the heat from all the new competition.  Kazakstan is already a major exporter and means to hold markets share while dozens and soon hundreds of new reactors come on line in the coming years.
It’s going to take along time for even a large growth of reactors to burn through all this uranium.  All the plans to date are for comparatively inefficient reactors getting, optimistically, 5% efficiency.

While the U.S. dawdles over its hysteria and political inhibitions, India can build cheaper nuclear reactors – than even South Korea.  Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, secretary in the Department of Atomic Energy, said India can now manufacture nuclear reactors at $1,700 per unit.

Banwejee said, “Indian companies manufacturing components and systems for nuclear reactors can now do the same work for much less cost. For instance, he said, L&T, which supplies many critical components for the Indian nuclear and defense sectors, can make the large reactor vessel in their new Hazira plant. This is something of an achievement because it’s traditionally been the preserve of Japanese engineering expertise.

There’s plenty of uranium fuel and it looks like hundreds of reactors are going to get built. For a lot of the world economic development and growth are going to be powered and grow quickly with very cheap electrical power.

So be it, while the U.S. left its nuclear gold standard to be picked to pieces by the competition, billions of dollars in sales and thousand of jobs were lost.  Not to mention the incredible risks of proliferation spreading planet wide.