The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

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There are 2 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Delaware Looks to Biodiesel to Fuel Vehicles
From: AP@alternatepower.com (Alternate Power)
2. Trend Favors Nuclear-Hydrogen Economy
From: AP@alternatepower.com (Alternate Power)

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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:06:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: AP@alternatepower.com (Alternate Power)
Subject: Delaware Looks to Biodiesel to Fuel Vehicles

06 May 2003:
By Randall Chase, Associated Press:
DOVER, Del. — Farmers in Delaware are looking hopefully toward biodiesel as a way to expand the market for their soybeans. A $60,000 federal grant is being used to study the feasibility of building a biodiesel production plant in Delaware, where soybeans, the most common ingredient in biodiesel, are the top agricultural crop. "It is an industry that's just getting started," said Marty Ross of Delmar, a soybean farmer and chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Biodiesel Exploratory Committee, the group leading the charge for a biodiesel production plant. Ross also is a member of a state energy task force subcommittee recommending the mandatory blending of biodiesel with conventional diesel fuel sold in Delaware. Biodiesel is a clean-burning alternative fuel made from animal fat or vegetable oil: anything from used restaurant grease to virgin soybean oil. Glycerin is removed from the fat or oil, and the resulting methyl esters are used for biodiesel, while the glycerin is sold for use in drugs, cosmetics, and other products. Nationwide, sales of biodiesel have soared from about 500,000 gallons in 1999 to an estimated 15 million gallons last year, said Joe Jobe, executive director of the National Biodiesel Board in Jefferson City, Mo. Jobe noted that low-percentage blends of biodiesel and conventional diesel fuel can be used in virtually all diesel applications, from trucks to farm equipment to boats, with no engine modifications. "The single biggest challenge is education," he added. "Biodiesel is still not a household world." Unlike conventional diesel fuel, biodiesel contains no sulfur or petroleum, meaning it burns much cleaner and reduces emissions of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulates. Its high lubricity improves engine life, and the exhaust is far less noxious than the oily, black smoke often seen trailing behind diesel vehicles. Biodiesel fans also tout it as a domestic resource that can help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Currently, there are about 20 biodiesel producers registered with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. That number may grow if Congress approves a reduction in the diesel fuel excise tax when biodiesel is blended with petroleum diesel, making biodiesel competitive on price, Jobe said. Delaware soybean farmers have struggled in recent years. Following last year's drought, they harvested about 4.6 million bushels of soybeans, down from 7 million bushels in 2001 and well below the record high of 9.2 million bushels in 2000. Advocates believe a biodiesel plant in Delaware could help boost soybean prices. They also say it would complement the region's poultry industry, which uses soybean meal for livestock feed and might even supply animal fat for biodiesel production. A report from a state energy task force subcommittee last month called for legislation requiring conventional diesel fuels sold in Delaware to contain 2 percent biodiesel, a blend known as B2. The subcommittee also called on the General Assembly to recognize biodiesel in state law for tax purposes and for the governor to require B20 — a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel — in state vehicles. A spokesman said Gov. Ruth Ann Minner would consider it. "It's not only good for the environment, but it's good for Delaware farmers," Minner spokesman Greg Patterson said. Currently, state fleets, including those of the agriculture, natural resources, and transportation departments, are the largest users of biodiesel in Delaware. Biodiesel pumps aren't yet widely available to the public, with the first two opening just this year.
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:06:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: AP@alternatepower.com (Alternate Power)
Subject: Trend Favors Nuclear-Hydrogen Economy

By John C. Zink, Ph.D., P.E.,
Contributing Editor:
A prominent environmentalist has observed that societies exhibit a natural trend toward the use of more-concentrated energy sources. He concluded that, regardless of government energy policy, people use ever-more hydrogen-rich fuels. Ultimately, this trend could lead to a hydrogen-based economy, with nuclear energy in the pivotal role of producing the hydrogen. In last May's column I discussed one such scenario: Chauncey Starr's proposal for a nuclear-hydrogen "SuperGrid." Researchers are now bringing these visions closer to reality by addressing which nuclear technologies would be most appropriate for hydrogen production.

Last April, Jesse H. Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University, spoke to scientists at the George C. Marshall Institute about historical trends in energy use. Ausubel observed that, over the past 130 years, there has been a long-term evolution in society's dominant energy sources. This trend has manifested itself in three waves, with one overriding trend, which Ausubel calls decarbonization.

Ausubel notes that end users have steadily increased the spatial density of energy they consume, as civilization has progressed from tribes in the wilderness, to an agrarian society, to an urban society. Following this trend, the commonly used fuel sources have increased in energy intensity, and have progressed from sources with high carbon content to those with lower carbon content. And as the carbon content has decreased, the hydrogen content has increased. Wood, the most primitive fuel, has a carbon to hydrogen ratio of 10:1. Progressing to coal, oil, and natural gas, the carbon to hydrogen ratio progresses from 2:1 to 1:2 to 1:4. In 1988, Ausubel and some colleagues extrapolated this 130-year trend to the year 2100. They projected that, by then, carbon will disappear entirely from the fuel supply. Furthermore, this trend appears to be stable: it continued through such societal upheavals as economic depressions and wars; and the trend seems impervious to interference from government energy planners.

It is instructive to consider the relevance of these observations to our current energy policy debate. First, the trend observed by Ausubel seems to indicate that the projected steady increase in CO2 emissions which so alarms the global warming advocates is an artifice of their own computer models; it is not a verifiable long-term trend. Second, to the extent to which energy policy can accelerate the trend, Ausubel says, "In the case of the USA, the policy prescriptions are simple: favor gas, hydrogen and nuclear." Ausubel offers the prognostication that, "Over the longer term, the production of hydrogen is what will improve the economics of nuclear power, much more than standardizing plants or building plants more quickly; it gives nuclear power plants something to do 24 hours a day."

In the February 2003 issue of Nuclear News, Charles Forsberg, Paul Pickard and Per Peterson note that there is currently a large and growing U.S. market for commercial hydrogen. (If the president's proposed $1.3 billion project to develop a hydrogen fuel cell powered car succeeds, that market eventually may exceed even the electricity market.) The authors observe that the Advanced High-Temperature Reactor (AHTR) concept, proposed for the Department of Energy's Generation IV nuclear plant development program, is specifically designed for hydrogen production. The AHTR uses graphite-matrix coated-particle fuel and high-temperature molten salt coolant. Because of its high-temperature operation, the AHTR is capable of high-temperature electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen. The hot electrolysis method uses both electricity and heat to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, yielding a thermal-to-hydrogen efficiency twice that of the low-temperature electrolysis process. According to the authors, Japanese researchers think this may reduce the cost of hydrogen production by as much as 40 percent.
Contrary to Ausubel's expectation of dual-use nuclear plants, the Nuclear News authors observe that, to be practical, an AHTR would be built to produce either electricity or hydrogen, but not both. They note that, "Experience with high-temperature chemical plants is that cyclic operation results in serious reliability problems." So it is clear that engineers must still work out a lot of the details pertaining to the hydrogen economy. Nevertheless, it seems that knowledgeable people from diverse areas of science and engineering are concluding that the nuclear-hydrogen energy system holds great promise for the world's future energy needs.

While it is risky to project the future as an extrapolation of the past, Ausubel's predictions are especially compelling because they come from an understanding of the reasons behind the fuel-use trend. Similarly, those who understand nuclear technology recognize its inherent merits and are developing its unique potential to contribute to the hydrogen economy. I would not argue that the nuclear-hydrogen future envisioned by Starr, Ausubel and others is inevitable, but it seems to be the most-plausible long-term energy scenario for sustaining a thriving economy.

(Thanks to reader Patrick Chapman for pointing out the Ausubel speech, which is available on the Marshall Institute Web site.) Power Engineering April, 2003
http://pe.pennwellnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&ARTICLE_ID=173265&VERSION_NUM=1&p=6
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