There is a lot of talk about the importance of reducing emissions in mainstream media but almost none about the importance of conserving the remaining fuel resources that we have for as long as possible to attempt to provide the semblance of a smooth transition away from fossil fuels. Is this reluctance on the part of mainstream media a deliberate attempt at covering up the awful truth about how close to complete disaster we really are now? All reasonable and knowledgable scientists agree that we have less than 10 years fuel reserves at the current exponentially increasing rate of consumption.

Is it just a case of mainstream ignorance of the scale of the issue that we are facing as a civilisation? Are the editors scared to voice an opinion that is outside of the conventional norm? Are they waiting for someone else to say the truth so they can quietly and subtly let the cat out of the bag without having to take responsibility for being the bearer of bad news? Is it just too scary to contemplate the truth of the matter? Or are they just not able to comprehend the entirety of the picture in one foul swoop?

We lay it out again just in case there are people reading who have not already grasped the gravity of the situation.

The world is consuming more fuel everyday. The rate of consumption has increased exponentially for the past 100 years. We are now at the point that is otherwise know as 1 minute to midnight. The point at which the remaining resources will be consumed by the time the end of this period of doubling consumption is reached. The end of the current period is within the decade. What that means is by the end of this decade we will consume more fuel than we have available to consume. In other words we have almost completely run out of petroleum based fuel.

The drive to convert the remaining fuel reserves into other forms of energy harnessing technology like solar, wind, hydro, thermal, etc… is only increasing the rate of consumption of the remaining fossil fuel reserves. We will have to be very careful to use what is left as efficiently as possible in order to make the most intelligent use of it for the future generations to look back on and sing our praise.

The announcement today of the US commitment to achieve 54.5 MPG by 2025 is a pointless waste of breath. As useful as saying we pledge to do nothing about our consumption of our valuable fuel reserves until all the fuel has run out and then we will start to make some plans for what we can do to sustain our society with no fuel resources.

They have left it too little, too late. It’s the equivalent of the fixation with increasing the debt ceiling. They have no money so what they are going to do is lend themselves some more money to pay off the debt that they owe to themselves and everyone else instead of just admitting that they have no money.

Unfortunately fuel is a tangible product and when it runs out in the next 10 years there will be no way they can just increase the fuel reserve ceiling. If American’s don’t realise the mess they are in now when it is just stupid money that is on the line what are they going to do when they actually can’t eat because they have no fertiliser to produce their food and no petrol to transport the little amount of food that they can produce?

Until everyone is able to answer these hard questions with tangible solutions and not just meaningless political puffery the stability of global societies are going to get worse not better… and now that we are all connected that means everyone is affected in one way or another.

Tags: banksters, corporations, cover up, disaster, e=mc2, Elite, Energy Storage, Engine, environment, food, Fuel, government, media, replacements, social, unrest by Sparky
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The New Scientist has finally stepped up and released a detailed analysis of the radiation being emitted from the Fukushima Facility. Interestingly they provide a new number on the total amount of fuel at the site as 1760 tonnes. With our calculations of the amount of fuel in the 6 reactors as 870 metric tonnes that gives us a better idea of how many spent fuel rods are being store on the site. The total weight of the spent fuel is 1760 – 870 = 890 metric tonnes. Also note the Chernobyl reactor had only 180 tonnes.

In the 10 days it burned, Chernobyl put out 1.76 × 1018 becquerels of iodine-131, which amounts to only 50 per cent more per day than has been calculated for Fukushima Daiichi. It is not yet clear how long emissions from the Japanese plant will continue.

Similarly, says Wotawa, caesium-137 emissions are on the same order of magnitude as at Chernobyl. The Sacramento readings suggest it has emitted 5 × 1015 becquerels of caesium-137 per day; Chernobyl put out 8.5 × 1016 in total – around 70 per cent more per day.

“This is not surprising,” says Wotawa. “When the fuel is damaged there is no reason for the volatile elements not to escape,” and the measured caesium and iodine are in the right ratios for the fuel used by the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. Also, the Fukushima plant has around 1760 tonnes of fresh and used nuclear fuel on site, and an unknown amount has been damaged. The Chernobyl reactor had only 180 tonnes.

Tags: Components, disaster, e=mc2, Energy Storage, environment, food, Fuel, government, military, nuclear, weather by Sparky
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An British Cryogenics company, Highview Power Storage, is now jumping on the air fuel bandwagon with a demonstration system that can cool air to liquid and store it in high pressure tanks. This is reminiscent of the mdi-air car which has yet to make it to mass market after many years of intense resistance from the automotive industry and associated Euro zone govt departments especially the French.

The British method is not for transportation though. Instead they see a benefit in using bio-mass from waste recycling facilities to provide the energy required to liquefy air and harnessing their cryogenics knowledge to super cool the liquid nitrogen result as an alternative to Li-Ion batteries. When the air is decompressed it expands creating force to be used to power an electric turbine. They claim to be able to get 70% of the energy back from the conversion process with the addition of a little extra heat to increase the rate of expansion of the liquid air.

Next up they are planning to build a 3.5 MW system to provide power for the local community. It may not be the most efficient way of storing energy but if it is combined with solar and wind it could provide a very stable energy supply for many years. That is going to appeal to any long term project where stable energy is a requirement so they most likely have a decent market segment. If all else fails they can just export the energy to the grid for tax credits or sell directly to a major supplier and become part of the bassload grid supply chain.

Tags: Circuits, e=mc2, Energy Storage, Fuel, mobile, recycle, supply, transport by Sparky
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OurFuturePlanet.org has an interesting writeup on the issues Japan face in the coming decade relating to the oil crunch. They make the following point which is the first I have seen in any “mainstream” media source.

The greatest concern is that this time bomb could explode as early as 2015, and with a high probability before 2020 when a global oil crunch has been predicted by Chatham House – Peak Oil report (the UK’s Royal Institute of International Affairs), by the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security – peak oil report (a group of businesses, including Virgin Airlines, Ove Arup and Partners, etc.) and by the Energy Research Centre – peak oil report, amongst others.

To date I have not seen any mainstream media articles or even commentary on these reports linked above. The silence is conspicuous to say the least.

The problem with the Ourfutureplanet.org article is the author talks about Peak oil as though it hasn’t been reached yet. That is a severe misunderstanding of the issue. Peak oil was anywhere between 2000 and 2006 which means that with exponential increasing consumption the following 10 years will require consumption of as much oil as the entire previous history of oil consumption. That’s how exponential consumption works. The doubling period is the time it takes to double the rate of growth in this case consumption. With a consistent doubling rate of 10 years since the start of oil consumption that means that at the oil peak we only have 10 years of consumable oil left.

Of course the oil won’t all be completely consumed as the laws of demand and supply will kick in before then making oil inaccessible to anyone but the super wealthy Elite, Governments and Mega Corporations. In addition by far the majority of remaining oil is termed Energy Negative which means it takes more energy to extract it, process it and distribute it than it will provide once it has gone through that process effectively relegating that oil to use by organisations/people that can afford to waste energy.

The information is not new or hidden but it is just not being reported properly in the mainstream media if at all. Serious questions abound for why we educated westerners are allowing our media organisations to get away with such complacency if not downright neglect. Is it because we really don’t want to know the truth and are happy to let them continue white washing the issue or is it because of a greater conspiracy against us to Dis-educate and keep us in the dark?

Tags: Fuel, nuclear, oil by Sparky
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A very proper report from the UK Committee on Climate Change looks at the future of fuel and electricity supply in Britain. Apart from the obvious statements that meat will be more expensive and there will be an increase in fuel poor people they also provide this rather nice graph of their projected timeline for carbon intensity of supply.

For those of you wondering wtf is carbon intensity of supply here’s an explanation. Basically this is how much fossil fuel contributes to the overall supply of electricity to the grid.

If we use this graph as an overview of the general trend in fossil fuel supplies we can see the UK govt is projecting that within the next 10 years they will have approximately half the energy that they currently get from fossil fuel. We can go a step further to say this looks at though they are projecting that by the end of the decade the whole world will have to accept that we have half as much energy from fossil fuels as we do today. This graph is one of the few projections that is officially sanctioned by a major western power. Along with recent admissions from Russia that they have enough fossil fuel in reserve to meet the needs of todays rate of consumption (RoC) for the next 30 years or approximately 10 years at exponentially increasing RoC.

Interestingly the UK report says they will be controlling the grid and personalised power cuts will become the norm. People will have to eat less red meat, install ground source heat pumps and most cars will have to be electric by 2030.

Given that even the industrial might of the US of A is going to struggle to get just 1 million electric cars on the road within the next 4 years the likelihood of converting the entire world fleet to electric in the next 10 years is almost impossible. By that point any cars being made will be ludicrously expensive to manufacture so very few people will be able to afford them. We can already see that trend with companies like Tesla motors who are positioning themselves at the top end of the current market.

It seems that we as a global community have really missed our chance to make the coming transition away from fossil fuels a smooth process. What is it about forward planning and preparation that is so difficult for multinational corporations to achieve? Isn’t that what people are paid for?

Tags: Energy Storage, Fuel, Fundamentals, oil by Sparky
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A company in Japan going by the name of Blest has a unique method for recycling plastic back into oil fuel. And guess what one of the key components is? Yes, it’s water!!!

They machine uses a heater to melt the plastics and combines the resulting gas with water to create an oil fuel which can be further refined into diesel and gasoline. The plastics that can be recycled include most of the household plastics that we trash on a daily basis. The machines are capable of recycling polystyrene, polyethylene and polypropylene of numbers 2 to 4. PET bottles that fall under number 1 polypropylene, however, cannot be processed.

The current tabletop model can convert one kilo of plastic into one liter of oil, and sells from Blest for $9,500. It uses around 20 cents of electricity for the conversion process. Conveniently, it is claimed that one kilogram of plastic using one kilowatt of electricity can produce one litre of fuel. They claim it takes around 3 hours to recycle 80% of the plastic into fuel oil with the smallest machine. The bigger machines have kg/h ratings.

The quality of the fuel is not apparent. However it would be possible to run a small machine from a rooftop solar+battery system and convert your fuel needs for your car/bike at home. All you would need then is a regular supply of water and waste plastic which is easy for most people to attain without having to make any drastic changes to the way you consume or live.

The marketing Flyer has a nice concise overview with most of the important details outlined Front Back

Tags: Circuits, Components, Energy Storage, Fuel, oil by Sparky
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- Latest news in this new year we see data coming out of Russia that they have enough oil reserves to last for 40 years at current rate of consumption (RoC). Although they admit that 30% of the reserves are not worth extracting due to the cost of extraction. In other words it costs more energy to get the oil out of the ground than it will provide once extracted, processed, transported, taxed, etc… Simple back of the envelope math tells us that given the exponential increase in the RoC with a doubling rate of about every 10 years as proven every decade since 1910 and minus the 30% already acknowledged as out of reach they actually have approximately 10 – 14 years of oil reserves left.

40 – 12 = 28 years at current RoC
28 / 2 (exponential increase in RoC over 10 years) = 14

That’s assuming they are telling the truth about the proven reserves. Even if they are not, whats the bet they won’t be sharing what’s left with the rest of the world?

- We also hear that bio diesel made from waste animal fat is being promoted in the USA as an alternate fuel to meet the demand of the decrease in fuel resources over in that part of the world. They expect to be able to produce upto 75million gallons per year at a single factory. Simple math tells us that is equivalent to 10% of ones days total consumption in the USA.

USA daily consumption in 2008 = 18mil bbl/day
1 barrel of oil = 42 gallons
75million gallons / 42 = 1,790,000 bbl
18mil / 1.79 = 10%

And that was at 2008 RoC. They would need to have 3650 factories to meet the 2008 RoC. That’s a lot of meat that has to be produced using fossil fuels in order to meet demand. I guess we can’t count on that being very productive for very long if it even gets off the ground at all.

- Next up we have news from Australia that after extrapolating the road toll statistics on how many cars/payments are made on Australian toll roads to get a recent official statistic for how much fuel is being consumed by cars driving on toll roads in Australia it is found that if Australians only drive on toll roads there is enough fossil fuel reserve here in Australia to last for almost 2 years. So either they are fudging their numbers for the toll statistics or Australia is going to run out of local fuel reserves within a year.

Tags: Energy Storage, Fuel, oil by Sparky
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Make sure you check out this great blog on the amazing potential of Thorium nuclear reactors for greatly reducing the immediate electrical energy needs of the world.

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) are currently being built in China to pave the way for the sustainable energy revolution. America and the rest of the western world has had the ability to utilize this technology for almost 100 years but due to the powerful forces at play in the energy and military sectors they have chosen not to make the most of this amazing resource. Instead they would rather use petrol and coal to maintain their positions in the energy and societal hierarchy.

If the Chinese can pull it off and there is no valid reason that they will not, then they will instantly become the worlds leaders in energy production and supply. Immediately reversing the consumption of carbon based fuels and decreasing their carbon footprint on the planet. It will catapult them far and away into the first position of the global economy and everyone will be playing catchup from then on.

If only the Indians would follow suit. Surely they are not completely sucked into the western dogma of the military industrial complex and are able to take the decisive lead in switching their focus from military weaponization of nuclear fuel to a cleaner greener and totally sustainable approach that is represented by thorium based reactors.

Tags: e=mc2, Fuel, Fundamentals, nuclear by Sparky
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There are a couple of labs being funded to work on the possibility of using sunlight to transform water and CO2 into a combustible fuel with equivalent stored energy to existing carbon based fuel. An article in the daily telegraph attempts to portray it as a serious potential option for ensuring future energy demands are met. What they don’t tell us is the math behind the technology. It does sound like a viable solution and with the labs working on the problem maybe they will solve the issues holding it back before we actually run out of oil and our real problems really start. The main question is if they can extract enough CO2 from the surrounding environment to get back the potential energy that will make it an equivalent in energy storage to existing fuels. It’s definitely possible to make combustible fuel with this technique but will it really scale to meet the requirements that we have for the global energy supply over the coming 10 years let alone the following decade once the existing fuel supply we can extract energy positively has been exhausted?

Solar-powered reactors can take carbon dioxide and turn it into carbon monoxide. The same reactors can also be used to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The two can then be reacted together with a catalyst to form hydrocarbon fuels, in a technique known as the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Fuels made in this way are sufficiently similar to those currently used in cars that major redesigns of engines and refuelling stations should not be necessary. If fuels can be made entirely from atmospheric carbon, running a car on that fuel would be carbon neutral.
One such machine, the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5), created by a team of scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, captures carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust fumes. In the future, however, they hope to extract it directly from the air.

The system uses a giant parabolic mirror, which concentrates sunlight on to two chambers separated by spinning rings of cerium oxide. As the rings turn, the cerium oxide is heated to 1500C and releases oxygen into one of the chambers. The oxygen is then pumped away.
As the ring spins, the now de-oxidised cerium moves into the other chamber. Carbon dioxide is pumped in, and the deoxidised cerium steals one of the oxygen molecules, creating carbon monoxide and cerium oxide.

Another team, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, uses a similar system, but with calcium oxide, zinc oxide and steam, which can create a stream of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Their system can already use atmospheric carbon dioxide.

At the moment the two reactors have problems. The New Mexico team’s system currently only works for a few seconds at a time, while the Swiss model runs at a mere 10 kilowatts. But both hope to improve reliability and yield.

Tags: e=mc2, Energy Storage, Fuel by Sparky
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Scientists at UMass/Amherst are researching the possibilities in using geobacter strains to extract electrons from water using only sunlight as a power source. With a simple process and the right bacteria it is possible to produce acetate or acetyl-Co A which is a basic building block of all oil based fuels and plastics.

In practical terms, the closed ME system Lovley envisions could be located anywhere sunlight is available, and harvested with an array of solar panels. As he explains, “It’s a two-electrode system. One electrode extracts electrons from water and produces oxygen as a byproduct. The electrons travel to the second electrode where the bacteria are, and they take in carbon dioxide and spit out acetate. With further engineering the bacteria are expected to also be able to produce fuels or other valuable commercial chemicals, for example, butanediol, used to make plastics. ”

Tags: Fuel by Sparky
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