Zark's

New Coal Smokestacks Are Sprouting in Europe

Europe Returns to Coal describes how the progressive western European countries such as Germany and Italy will be opening 50 new coal-powered generating plants in the next 5 years.  These two countries still have bans on nuclear power, so they have few alternatives for on-demand energy other than the oldest fossil fuel of all, coal.  To be fair to the Europeans, they will be advanced power plants with scrubbers and other technology.  EU lawmaker calls for clean coal incentives, specifically for the coal plants to trap CO2 and store it underground.  Does this sound like a good idea?

Coal is still the primary fuel for electrical generation world-wide and also the largest contributor of CO2 emissions.  Supplies of coal fall short of demand, force up costs, tells that coal prices are climbing.  (What isn't?)  As a consequence, electricity rates in West Virginia and Kentucky are expected to rise about 15%, on top of rate increases last year.  The coal mines in Australia are too efficient - the ports sometimes have ships queued 30 to 50 deep waiting to be loaded.  World-wide, total electrical production from coal will continue rising from the present 49% for the foreseeable future. 

The raging economy in the east, China, is placing unrealizable demands upon its electrical grid.  China faces thermal coal supply challenge explains the country could face shortages of 10 GW this summer.  (That doesn't sound like much, Doc Brown's DeLorean required 1.21 GW!)  In the real world, a nuclear power plant is about 1 GW, so they will be short at least 10 nuclear power plants. 

This could be an interesting time for engineering if the countries of the world maintain their environment-oriented policies.  Just one thing.  We have a global economy.  In this flat world, you have to do what your competitor does. 

What to do With Spent Nuclear Fuel

The French produce 80% of their electricity with nuclear power plants.  However, explained in  Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth, a 1,000 MW nuclear power plant produces 20 tons of nuclear waste each year that must be disposed.  The French had been running a nuclear processing complex on the Normandy coast to extract plutonium for new fuel.  There are a few problems: 1) plutonium is the most toxic poison known to mankind, 2) the cost of generating this new fuel through reprocessing is more expensive than uranium, 3) the U.K. and Russia alone have 120 tons of plutonium - sooner rather than later terrorists will obtain enough for an atomic bomb.

The French plan was to simply separate the plutonium and require the country of origin to take back and store the hazardous material.  This is so onerous that most countries now consider it safer to store the original radioactive waste instead of shipping it to France.  With the business case evaporating, the reprocessing plants are candidates for closure. 

Of course, the U.S. plan has been to store waste in Yucca Mountain.  The facility has never opened, and most utility companies are forced to store the radioactive waste on site in dry storage casks.  A Nuclear Power Renaissance explains that construction at Yucca Mountain will not be authorized until at least 2011.

Now the U.S. is considering developing reactors that can burn the plutonium instead of uranium.  Fast neutron reactors have been moderately successful, but cost $2B more than conventional reactors.  The real problem is that the U.S. would need to build 40-75 of such reactors to handle the accumulating nuclear waste.  The plutonium is still very dangerous and needs to be securely controlled.

Non-petroleum exporting countries are running out of options as the price of oil continues to climb, with some predicting $200 barrel oil might be seen very soon.  Perhaps the countries of the world need to work this problem together, as an energy epidemic.  The survival of the industrial revolution may depend upon it.

Energy from Green River

The Green River basin covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.  The Green River is the primary tributary to the Colorado River.  In the form of oil shale, 17,000 square miles of two ancient lakebeds possibly contain over 800b barrels of recoverable oil.  Most intriguing is that most of the land belongs to the United States government.  In fact, the United States possesses over 60% of the world's oil shale.

Oil shale is a rock that contains kerogen, which is a precursor to petroleum.  It is different from tar sands because the kerogen has not been converted to petroleum through heat and pressure.  Ever since the Ute Indians discovered that this rock would burn, mankind has attempted to find a way to economically exploit this resource.  Mining, crushing, and then processing is just too costly.  It has been attempted, but unsuccessfully.

Over the past two decades, Shell Oil has been quietly researching the production of petroleum from oil shale, Oil shale may finally have its moment. With over 200 patents filed on in situ production, they may have developed the keys to unlocking this resource.  In situ means, 'in place', and their disclosed process is to drill wells and heat the earth to 650 degrees F and collect the liquefied petroleum in another well.  To keep the petroleum from escaping, they drill wells on the perimeter and cool the earth to basically form an impenetrable barrier for the petroleum.  Yes, it does take energy to extract the petroleum, but Shell estimates a 3:1 to 7:1 efficiency.

There is controversy and speculation with oil shale.  The Stuart Oil Shale Plant in Australia has battled with environmentalists and regulators, unsuccessfully it appears, because Oil plant equipment up for sale.  Meanwhile in Green River country, Oil and gas contractors scramble for housing in Garfield County.  There are currently 3900 wells in Garfield county and 1000 new wells a year are expected for the next decade. 

What do I think?  This sounds more complex and environmentally challenging than advocates might realize.  However, I don't like the current U.S. dependence upon external energy resources. 

Tomorrow's Puppy (Toppy)

There are seven cloned South Korean dogs named Tomorrow's Puppy, or Toppy for short.  (They all have the same name.)  This is a $300M project by the Korean Customs Service to determine if drug sniffing can be successfully cloned.  Cloned Sniffer Dogs in South Korea Begin Training explains the puppies, born in late 2007, are currently in the second phase of their training.  A former colleague of disgraced Hwang Woo-Suk, Lee Byung-Chun used the somatic nuclei from a golden retriever sniffer dog for generating the clones.  Cost for the Drug-Sniffing Clones is between $100K - $150K, although another source estimates the cost at only $43K each. 

Asia's head start in cloning technology explains that there are fewer ethical issues with animals than cloning humans.  There are some unknowns such as whether the cloned dogs will have shortened lifespans, such as Dolly.  Animal husbandry has long developed animal breeds for desired qualities and cloning may just be an evolution of that industry.  Wouldn't the world be better off if we could provide blind guide dogs at lower costs?  So the experiment by the Korean government could be a wise business investment, placing Korea as the leader of the pack. 

Now You See, Now You Don't

One of the big science/health headlines today is, Patients Harmed by Lasik Surgery Alternate Between Fury, Despair at FDA Hearing.  The FDA is hearing from lots of Lasik patients who have double vision, dry eyes, and loss of night vision.  As you know, the procedure cuts a thin flap on the eye, exposing the cornea.  A laser is then used to shape the cornea to the desired shape for better vision.  Lasik complications include: halos, dry eyes, double vision, floaters, light sensitivity, etc.

It has been known for some time that about 5% of Lasik patients are dissatisfied with the results of their procedure.  That has always frightened me away from the procedure, although I have several friends and acquaintances who have been very happy with the procedure.  For me though, 5% is too high a failure rate to gamble with my vision.  Remember, Lasik is forever, for better or worse.

Ironically, the New York Times had recently reported a decline in Lasik surgery because of the deteriorating American economy, More Bad News for the Lasik Business. 

A New Outbreak of Ebola

World health officials continually fret that the average citizen is overly preoccupied with Ebola, also known as hemorrhagic fever.  After 40 years, Ebola still contagious to the public mind, accurately describes what most of us think about Ebola - we think about the Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman 1995 movie, Outbreak.  It did not help that a Soviet scientist testified before Congress that Russia did not know what happened to its Ebola experiments when the Soviet Union disintegrated.  Also an infectious disease with a 90% mortality rate catches the population's attention.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has an informative brochure about Ebola.  The mysterious host for the disease, that is wherever it hides until striking the human population is still unknown.  The CDC believes it is some animal organism living in Africa.  Once in the human population, Ebola spreads through airborne particles, blood, or bodily fluids.  Obviously medical personnel must have full body protection, including masks when caring for the infected victims.  Unfortunately the treatment regimen is simply supportive - provide fluids and help the body fight the disease by itself.  Death is usually from massive blood loss.

Ugandan health workers hit by Ebola, causing panic, describes the latest outbreak in Uganda.  Uganda of course, is the landlocked country on the north of Lake Victoria in the central African continent.  In this latest outbreak the doctors and nurses were not aware of what they were treating and nine health workers have contracted the disease.  Three of them have already died, bringing the latest fatality count to 18.

Another Life

How many times have you heard the expression, "I need a life!" ?  Courtesy of the web, it is very possible.  Second Life is a growing, vibrant, virtual community of avatars living lives defined by their creators.  Basically the avatar that you create is your alter-ego in this virtual world.  To learn more about this really cool world, either visit the storefront hyperlinked above or the condensed version at Wiki. 

Second Life still living its first one explains that Second Life has 16,000 servers and its residents were in the digital landscape over 220 million hours in 2007.  It is a strange world where you can talk with other avatars, hear what they are saying to each other, and basically live that life you might want to have.  A Forbes article describes the avatar "Zania Turner of glowing skin and impossibly luxuriant black hair who sashays in silk dresses ..." as one of the residents of Second Life.  It is a Hernando's Hideaway.

Real-world businesses are watching this digital landscape to determine whether they need to generate a presence in Second Life.  Apparently a church has a presence in Second Life. 

What do I think?  I don't have time for my real life.  Even though the Avatar is mapped to a real human, I would prefer to talk to the real thing without a mask.  Some people like the excitement or mystery of masks, and it can fulfill a desire for adventure.  It is a new world - a new form of social networking.

Tricking Bacteria

Bacteria are single-celled organisms that most of us have viewed underneath a microscope in either high school or college.  As you probably recall, they come in mainly two shapes; rods or spheres.  You probably also remember the gram stain test in which you apply a dye to the bacteria and those that accept the dye are considered gram-positive and those that don't, are gram-negative. 

Bacteria can be very environmentally aware.  When the environment is deteriorating for its survival, a bacterium can go dormant.  This sometimes happens in the human body when antibiotics are used to treat some diseases such as tuberculosis. When they become dormant, they are able to reject the antibiotics and thus hide in the body, waiting for a time when the immune system is unable to respond to their presence.

Wake up and die: Activating Dormant Bacteria to Kill Them, describes a new technique for attacking these bacteria.  The strategy is simple - you tempt the bacteria with nutrients that it likes which will awaken it from dormancy then and accompany that desert with antibiotics.  That antibiotic though, must work quickly - within an hour.

Saving the Northern White Rhino

Because of poachers, there may be only 9 Northern White Rhinos left in the world.  One of those is in the San Diego Wild Animal Park and too old to reproduce.  In addition, rhinos in captivity rarely reproduce.  To save the species, cloning has been proposed. 

According to Cloning alternative may help save white rhino, Sir Ian Wilmut of the University of Edinburgh is pursuing a new technique for saving the rhino.  It is strictly not cloning, because it stimulates skin cells of the white rhino into creating new embryonic cells.  These will then be blended into embryos of the southern white rhinos which are not endangered.  This blend is really a chimera - a genetically blended animal. 

Rhino cloning explains that it is hoped some of the chimeras will produce sperm and egg cells of the northern rhino, preserving the gene pool. 

It is interesting that Sir Ian has abandoned the cloning approach he pioneered with Dolly the sheep in 1996.  Instead, he has been experimenting with this Japanese-originated approach of stimulating ordinary skin cells into embryonic cells.

The Bikini Atoll

One of the more interesting sites to Google Earth is Bikini Atoll.  Bikini Island is part of the Marshall Islands (in the western Pacific) and the site of U.S. nuclear testing in the 40s and 50s.  Because the two-piece bathing suit was introduced shortly after the first nuclear test on Bikini Island, the culture-changing garment was named the bikini.  (Think of all the Sandra Dee and Anette Funicello beach movies that resulted from the nuclear testing.)

Bikini Atoll's Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back to Life, describes the huge coral formations that have grown around the atoll, presumably because the site had been off limits for decades and even today carries a radioactive caution.  The very crater that was formed by a hydrogen bomb test, code-named Castle Bravo, has stunning coral growth. 

Don't take a three-hour tour to Bikini Island just yet, ala Gilligan's Island.  The vegegation such as coconuts are still dangerous to eat.