1a. the space option

[apsmith] Over the last year I have become more and more convinced that we have, particularly in the US, been extremely negligent about one major potential new power source: solar power collected in space, rather than on earth. And there seems to be no mention of it in your book. Why not?

A few references:
http://www.lispace.org/articles/SSPCase.html
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2003/october/announcements.cfm#3, followed up by Steve Fetter:
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2004/january/commentary.cfm#2 and

http://www.lispace.org/articles/fetter_jan_05.pdf as my followup.

http://www.nap.edu/execsumm/0309075971.html – 2001 NRC report.

In particular, moving collection to space resolves the two major (related) issues with solar photovoltaic installations: intermittency, and low capacity factor. It is not practical today, but neither is fusion, and the relative cost ratio from practicality seems similar. But only on one of those two options are we investing billions of dollars in R&D. In fact by my estimation there’s been at most $30 million spent on space solar power since Jimmy Carter was in office. Other than the obvious conspiracy theories, do you have a good explanation?

1b. Followup article in latest Physics & Society

[apsmith] Here’s the link – just published today: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2004/april/article2.cfm though it seems to have lost some of my formatting. Oh well… Anyway, to repeat the conclusion there:
Given the severity and urgency of the energy transition problem, and the fact that multi-trillion-dollar investments will be required, technologies in support of all four energy options (along with carbon sequestration) should be generously funded. SSP and TSP would both benefit from PV-related R&D funding; other R&D areas for SSP include wireless power transmission, lightweight space structures, and cost effective space launch, all of which could have significant spinoffs to other areas (for example, communications satellite capabilities) as well. Funding this range of technologies adequately, at least at the billion-dollar per year level that fission and fusion currently receive, will be essential to our future prosperity.

[Goodstein] Q. Why doesn’t you book discuss space-based solar collectors?

A. It does, starting on page 111.

2. the myth of the hydrogen economy

[apsmith] MIT’s technology review, among others, has recently explored the
hype about hydrogen,
based to a great extent on the recent NAS review that determined hydrogen would contribute little to replacing oil before 2030 or so. And also on a few recent realizations that (1) hydrogen right now is made from fossil fuels and releases more CO2 in production, refrigeration, transportation, and storage than an equivalent quantity of gasoline, and (2) practical fuel cells have at least a couple of orders of magnitude improvement needed in cost, and aren’t as efficient as we like to think.

We already have renewable bio-fuels (ethanol, bio-diesel) that can contribute a substantial amount to oil replacement for transportation purposes (with no need to convert to hydrogen on the way). Other ways of producing hydrogen from renewables go through electricity – so why not use that electricity directly in battery-powered vehicles? How can hydrogen be any better than a good modern battery (say Nickel metal-hydride)?

[Goodstein] Q. Can’t we do better than turning to hydrogen for fuel, using, say, bio-fuels or better batteries?

A. In the short run, certainly yes. As pointed out in the book, hydrogen is a loser. It’s made from fossil fuels (no savings in emissions) and it takes the equivalent of six gallons of gasoline to make enough hydrogen to replace one gallon of gasoline as a fuel. However, if in the far distant future we have solved the nuclear fusion problem and have an unlimited supply of stationary power, one can imagine using some of it to make hydrogen for transportation. Bio-fuels are presently a very inefficient use of sunlight, but that may change with research. We do now have better batteries (the lithium-ion batteries used in cell phones and lap-top computers) and that avenue should certainly be pursued alongside fuel cells.

3. Abiogenic Origins?

[jeremie] How do you respond to the theories put forth on Abiogenic Petroleum, such as from
Thomas Gold
or other
papers?

Even if it were true it may not promise unlimited oil (cost significantly increasing to drill deeper) but it might explain some of the existing wells
abnormally replenishing.

[Goodstein] Q. What about theories of abiogenic oil, and oil wells that magically replenish themselves?

A. We must keep an open mind. There are respectable scientists who believe that fossil fuels have nothing to do with fossils, but not very many of them. Today’s instruments can actually detect what kind of organisms went into making various different deposits of oil. Stories of self-replenishing wells should probably be read along-side stories of wells that failed to produce as expected. The most likely explanation is that the expectations were mistaken.

4. Energy alternatives

[apsmith] Dear Dr. Goodstein,

I think I have somewhere a rejection letter from you when I applied for a faculty position at Caltech back in the early 1990’s – no hard feelings though, it would be one of many :-)

I have not read your book “Out of Gas” – but from what I have read you seem to have identified nuclear and solar as the two main long-term options (discussed extensively here at sciscoop – see this story in particular – http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/1/8/204529/3366 which reviews the book “Innovative Energy Strategies for CO2 Stabilization”, one I would strongly recommend if you haven’t seen it.

But nuclear power has had hundreds of billions of dollars invested in it over the years, and still has 4 serious problems: local safety, waste dispoal, weapons proliferation, and cost. In addition, as you are aware, a once-through fuel cycle would quickly run into similar fuel supply problems as for fossil fuels if it were used to supply all the world’s energy needs. Even in Deutch’s recent MIT study, a tripling of worldwide nuclear power installations seemed the most they could hope for, due to the intrinsic high capital cost of nuclear power plants, and that’s still likely an order of magnitude less power than will be needed.

So first question – given all those problems, why are you so positive about nuclear power?

[Goodstein] Q. Why do you favor nuclear power in spite of all its shortcomings?

A. Nuclear power is no magic bullet, but it will have to be part of the mix. Beyond fossil fuel there is only nuclear and solar, and nuclear technology is far more advanced than solar at present.

5. Ok, I still haven’t read the book

[apsmith] but I did listen to your explanation
on the radio
and it’s pretty clear you acknowledge the realities of the situation, as far as the need for breeder reactors and associated reprocessing, and use of thorium, for example.

But still, you are advocating for an increase in R&D funding for nuclear power. Haven’t we already spent at least tens of billions of dollars on nuclear R&D? How would a bit more make a difference? Is the problem that past spending on fission and fusion was, in part, misdirected?

[Goodstein] Q. But why spend even more money on nuclear research when so much has already been spent?

A. Nuclear research, especially fusion, is expensive and has been disappointing in the past, but it is still the most likely area where a real breakthrough could change our future dramatically.

6. Nuclear Power Non-Renewable?

[jeremie] Could you explain why Nuclear Energy is always categorized as renewable, when it is still based on the refinment of limited natural resources? What exactly are the estimates on the world’s deposits of Uranium and what countries are they located in?

[Goodstein] Q. Why is nuclear power categorized as renewable, when it clearly is not?

A. Uranium for fission is clearly not a renewable resource. But deuterium for fusion is probably so abundant that it won’t run out for a very long time. Other fusion fuels such as lithium are more of a problem.

7. Nuclear oil-making: surely not too hard?

[GRLCowan] In a prophecy that he says is meant to be self-falsifying, Goodstein says, “Civilization as we know it will come to an end some time in this century, when the fuel runs out”, meaning fossil fuels. In the same essay* he also mentions the possibility of estimating a Hubbert’s peak date for uranium.

My question: has he in fact tried to predict that date? With what result?

This would entail determining how much can be taken, with reference not to today’s price of barely 40 US cents per barrel-of-oil-equivalent (BOE) with respect to once-through use in conventional thermal-neutron reactors, but to a much higher BOE price equal to the product of the highest BOE price civilization as we know it has lived with and a conversion fraction.

The conversion fraction is how many actual barrels of synthetic liquid hydrocarbon a BOE of uranium can make. Obviously this is much less than 1, but it’s probably also much more than 0.1, so if we use 0.1 as a conservative guess, we get US$10/BOE as the limiting price for the uranium that fits under the Hubbert curve.

(Not $4, a tenth of the highest price suppliers have been paid. The highest price petroleum revenue beneficiaries have actually received is on the order of US$100 per barrel. Most of these beneficiaries are not the suppliers, of course; they’re civil servants, government contractors, and others who maintain themselves by cashing government cheques, or direct electronic deposits, that are substantially fuel-tax-derived.)

So the uranium under this Hubbert curve shouldn’t cost more than US$10 per BOE. But according to Japanese researchers, that price is abundantly enough to flush out a large fraction of the ocean’s 400-trillion-BOE inventory. They say they can get it out for only US$100-200 per kg, i.e. US$1-2 per BOE.

Goodstein mentions Deffeyes’ book “Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage”. But Deffeyes long ago wrote about “World Uranium Resources” in Scientific American, with Ian D. MacGregor, Jan. 1980.

A figure from this article was recently reprinted in a web-accessible PDF file,
p. 29, aka p. 1-15.
Although seawater uranium seems to put the lie to notions of energy scarcity any time this millennium, it is not unique in doing so; several other bars in that figure are taller (represent more uranium) and farther left (the U is not so dilute).

Let us hope this cornucopian news does not fall only on deaf eyes … I’d like civilization to change at least a little from how we now know it. As above shown, energy with which lossily to make oil seems to be available, if we really have to have oil, but I’d prefer we be given the choice to run our motors on boron. This is like hydrogen, usable as fuel only when you also have the primary energy with which to make it, except it is not bulky, not given to fuel-air explosions, and has no decades-long history of forgotten promises and prototypes.

Let us hope this cornucopian news does not fall only on deaf eyes … I’d like civilization to change at least a little from how we now know it. As above shown, energy with which lossily to make oil seems to be available, if we really have to have oil, but I’d prefer we be given the choice to run our motors on boron. This is like hydrogen, usable as fuel only when you also have the primary energy with which to make it, except it is not bulky, not given to fuel-air explosions, and has no decades-long history of forgotten promises and prototypes.

Graham Cowan
How motoring gains solar cachet

* www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/Essay2.pdf

[Goodstein] Q. Do you have a prediction for Hubbert’s peak for uranium? And isn’t uranium from seawater an essentially inexhaustible source?

A. I have no prediction. The known reserves would be enough to sustain a burn-rate of 10 TW (the present burn-rate of all fossil fuels) for one or two decades (ignoring the Hubbert peak effect). And it would require 10,000 of the largest (GW) scale nuclear plants to accomplish that. Most experts seem to believe that lower concentration deposits such as that in seawater will never be economically recoverable. But they may be wrong. Here as in so many other areas, research is needed.

8. China

[Anonymous Hero] Can China leapfrog to a hydrogen-based transport system, or is it already developing an oil addiction? Is it possible that environmental solutions could soon be emerging from rapidly developing countries who have scientific know-how and severe environmental problems, or will the West dictate fuel consumption patterns for the forseeable future?

[Goodstein] Q. Can China leapfrog directly to hydrogen, or is it already addicted to oil? And might not scientifically sophisticated emerging nations solve our environmental problems?

A. About hydrogen, see question 2 above. The emerging nations are precisely the ones that don’t want the solutions to environmental problems be permitted to interfere with their economic development.

9. methane to methanol conversion

[Jay] The oceans contain a lot of methane which could be a replacement for gasoline if it could be effectively converted to methanol. How close are we to developing a catalyst that can control the methane to methanol conversion?

[Goodstein] Q. Can all the methane in the oceans be converted to methanol for fuel?

A. Methane exists in the oceans as methane hydrate, but no one knows how much there is or how or whether it could effectively be mined. In principle, methane (a molecule consisting of 4 hydrogen atoms and one carbon) can be oxidized to make methanol (4H, one C and one O). I don’t know how good the catalysts are, but I doubt that’s an insoluble problem.