Category: Environment

Wind turbines, photovoltaic power cells, wave energy, porous hydrogen storage composites for fuel cells, carbon sequestration, nuclear, even the idea of damming the Red Sea for a massive hydroelectric power plant are among the high-tech approaches being developed in the battle to reduce our collective size 9 carbon footprints to mere tiptoes.

Saving energy and reducing emissions does not have to be about high tech and macro engineering. The developed world is unlikely ever to give up its dependence on personal motor transport, frequent and pointless air travel, patio heaters, high-definition DVDs, hot and cold running water, and countless other energy-intensive luxuries unless someone actually physical pulls the power plug.

However, for millions of people in the developing world, who may not even be aware of the problems we face with iPhone tariffs, double booked business flights, and lost Facebook friends, life is hard at a much more fundamental level. Aside from poverty, unreliable water supply, malnutrition and disease, even very basic needs are not met, such as keeping warm and dry in freezing mountain villages with no access to heated spa pools and acrylic nail extensions, and wireless internet access to refresh the contents of your Kindle.

D. Buddhi of the Thermal Energy Storage Laboratory at Devi Ahilya University in Indore, India, Atul Sharma of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Kun Shan University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC, and S.D. Sharma of UAE Innovations Center in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE have turned to a perennial problem of those without the comforts of central heating and doubly glazed windows – keeping one’s feet warm.

The researchers have designed and tested three foot warmers that can store up solar energy during sunshine hours and then be used during cold evenings as a sustainable alternative to electric heaters. The optimum temperature, the team found in their trials, was just above body temperature. With this in mind, commercial grade lauric acid (which has a melting point 42.2 Celsius and a latent heat of fusion of 181 kilojoules per kilogram was used as the latent heat storage material in their PCM (phase change material) designs. Basically, the material inside melts in the sun and then once the sun goes down the material begins to solidify giving off enough latent heat as it does so to raise the temperature of the container to about 40 Celsius.

They carried out experiments (details are reported in the International Journal of Global Energy Issues) during a winter season to study how well the PCM units performed in the sunny but cold winter climate of northern India. The devices could easily reduce reliance on costly 1 kilowatt electric heaters for keeping the legs and feet warm; and although PCM units do not have the benefit of creating circulating warm air in a room, much of that energy is wasted anyway.

So, could a solar-powered foot warmer save the planet? Perhaps not, at least not until those in the developed world abandon their predilection for vehicle climate control and optical mice. However, alongside other simplified technologies such as solar cookers, arsenic-removing water filters, and clockwork radios, they could at least make a significant difference to the cost of living of people in the poorer parts of the world without compromising their quality of life. Moreover, those in frozen climes will at least be able to keep their feet warm while pondering shag pile carpets and remote control storm shutters.

Oscar winning politician Al Gore and the hundreds of scientists of the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change established by the United Nations) have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace for their work on raising international awareness of our responsibilities when it comes to climate change.

The award highlights the fact that climate change could have a significant impact on international relations and world peace. Indeed, former IPCC chairman Dr Bob Watson, said that, “What the Nobel Committee has done is to demonstrate to the world that climate change is not just simply an environmental issue but an issue of peace. Climate change can threaten security both at the national and regional level and has brought into sharp focus just how serious this issue is.”

Current chairman Rajendra Pachauri said that this is a prize for all scientists pushing for action against climate change. UN Secretary General said that the Prize, for them, shows that it is beyond doubt that climate change is affecting the world.

Earlier this week I highlighted the views of Jesse Ausubel, who argues that renewable energy sources will not be sufficient to fulfill global energy demand and that nuclear power is the only viable option for powering the world. See Renewable Myths and Nuclear Heresies. Almost left unsaid, in his argument, although alluded to, are the inherent security and safety issues that surround the maintenance of a widespread nuclear industry. This week, a trio of security serious vulnerabilities surrounding the use of nuclear power have been published.

The first threat is at the source of the raw material for nuclear power itself, the uranium mine, processing plant, and transport route. Here, physical protection and security are at a much lower level than at a nuclear installation in the developed world, according to Austrian scientists writing today in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology.

The second threat is from saboteurs with expertise in the industry and the security of nuclear installations. Researchers from the US Environmental Protection Agency suggest that such saboteurs on the inside could wreak havoc and cause a serious environmental and health threats with only small, shaped explosives or even no explosives at all.

Finally, at the waste end of the nuclear industry, a second US team point out that the significant quantities of spent radioactive fuel could also represent a security nightmare. The team from environmental health and safety consultants S. Cohen and Associates, in Montgomery Alabama, point out that there is no secure central repository for nuclear waste. Any one of the waste storage or processing plants could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

Friedrich Steinhäusler and Lyudmila Zaitseva of the Division of Physics and Biophysics, at the University of Salzburg, Austria, have investigated the potential security threats facing the industry at the initial mining and milling end of the nuclear process. They explain how there are several points at which someone intent on terrorism or other purposes might intercept highly radioactive material. For instance, terrorists or saboteurs might instigate illegal mining of an officially closed uranium mine or diversion uranium ore from a mine or mill, or more obviously demolition of facilities with the intention of causing environmental harm.

The Austrian team believes such threats are very real. Uranium mining has been carried out in almost twenty countries, although 90% of world production takes place in ten of these, with seven of these states having been associated with clandestine nuclear activities.

“The current control system is inadequate as it could allow rogue nations or terrorist groups to traffic uranium or enriched yellow cake in at least 24 countries on three continents,” say the researchers, “There is a critical need to counter the threats resulting from an uncontrolled acquisition of these radioactive materials in a coordinated manner.”

Anthony Honnellio of the Emergency Response Branch OSSR and Stan Rydell of the Pesticides Toxics and Radiation Unit, both divisions of the US Environmental Protection Agency in Boston, realised that have been many reports on nuclear security that focus on terrorist attack from outside. However, they explain that sabotage by individuals with a detailed knowledge of security procedures, plant layout and the functional nature of the critical components of a nuclear power plant, could exploit their knowledge to catastrophic effect.

They speculate on how small explosives might be brought into secure areas and reveal that despite post-9/11 security improvements, banned items nevertheless slip through the metal and explosive detection equipment at airports, so could just as readily be brought into a nuclear installation. But, their concern does not lie only with the impact an explosion at a carefully chosen site my cause. They suggest that damage to a critical component could disable a power station and lead to widespread power outages, with significant civil disruption to those dependent on the supply.

In their consideration of security at the waste end of the nuclear industry, Edwin Sensintaffar and Charles Phillips of S Cohen and Associates point out that a recent review of safety and security at commercial spent nuclear fuel plants suggested that such facilities are vulnerable to terrorist activity. A deliberate fire at such a facility could cause widespread radioactive contamination, which could affect the local and wider population as well as cause serious environmental damage.

Sensintaffar and Phillips describe a scenario based on such an event to demonstrate the potential impact resulting from the release and dispersion of spent fuel products. “The radioactive contamination that could be released into the environment from such an event could contaminate thousands of square kilometres, result in billions of dollars in economic impact and large numbers of both early and latent cancer deaths,” the researchers say.

The three papers are in International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology

Vol. 1, No. 3, 2007, p 286 – “Uranium mining and milling: material security and
risk assessment” by Friedrich Steinhäusler and Lyudmila Zaitseva

Vol. 1, No. 3, 2007, p 312 – “Sabotage vulnerability of nuclear power plants” by Anthony L. Honnellio and Stan Rydell
Vol. 1, No. 3, 2007, p 278 – “Environmental impact resulting from a fire at a spent nuclear fuel storage facility” by Edwin L. Sensintaffar and Charles R. Phillips

Renewable does not mean green. That is the claim of Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University in New York. He explains that building enough wind farms, tidal power stations, hydroelectric dams, and electric generators running on biomass to meet global energy demands will wreck the environment rather than save it.

Ausubel has analysed the amount of energy that each so-called renewable source can produce in terms of watts of power output per square metre and compared this with what might be possible using nuclear power instead. “Nuclear energy is green,” he claims, “Considered in watts per square metre, nuclear has astronomical advantages over its competitors.”

While vast sums of money are being invested in alternative energy sources based on wind, water, and biomass, nuclear industry expertise is being squandered. “In order to grow, the nuclear industry must extend beyond its niche of electric power generation,” says Ausubel. He suggests that the nuclear industry could form an alliance with methane suppliers to produce green power in the form of hydrogen for powering electricity-generating fuel cells, not only in vehicles but in other areas inaccessible to the conventional electricity grid. Such technologies will succeed when economies of scale form part of their conditions of evolution, Ausubel explains. In contrast, there are, he suggests no economies of scale involved in simply erecting more and more wind turbines.

Underpinning Ausubel’s argument is the need for “decarbonisation”, by which he means our reliance on producing energy by converting carbon compounds, coal, oil, and gas, into carbon dioxide and water. Hydrogen, in contrast, is as innocent as an element can be, ending combustion as water, with no carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emission. The intrinsic problem in developing a hydrogen-based power economy as opposed to one that relies on carbon compounds, is that energy is required to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen production could be the future role of the nuclear power industry, Ausubel explains – the use of its entirely renewable and almost endless energy supply in the production of hydrogen.

Ausubel considers each so-called renewable in turn. He points out that hypothetically flooding the entire province of Ontario, Canada, about 900,000 square km, with its entire 680,000 billion litres of rainfall, and storing it behind a 60 metre dam would only generate 80% of the total power output of Canada’s 25 nuclear power stations. Put another way, each square kilometre of dammed land would provide the electricity for just 12 people.

Similarly, biomass, which produces less than a fifth of the USA’s renewable energy, is almost as energy inefficient. Most biomass comes from the liquor of paper pulp mills, which is burned to economise the heat and power of paper factories. But, in terms of decarbonisation, this biomass, which initially comes from farmed trees, represents a 10 to 1 ratio of carbon atoms per hydrogen atom, which is less than oil at 1 to 2.

Some people would argue that the use of biomass would be carbon neutral because trees absorb carbon dioxide to grow. However, in order to fulfil the energy requirements of a large proportion of a nation based on biomass, a large proportion of the land area would have to be planted to biomass forest. To obtain the same electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant would require 2500 square kilometres of land working at optimal efficiency. Growth, harvesting and collection are not 100% efficient, relying as they do on high yields and powered equipment and vehicles.

Turning to the issue of wind, Ausubel points out that while wind farms are between three to ten times more compact than a biomass farm, a 770 square kilometre area is needed to produce as much energy as one 1000 Megawatt electric (MWe) nuclear plant. Moreover, wind farms can only be operated at two of the four wind speed ranges. Calm air means no power, of course, but gales faster than 25 metres per second (about 90 kilometres per hour) also means shutting down the turbines to prevent serious damage. To meet 2005 US electricity demand and assuming round-the-clock wind at the right speed, an area the size of Texas, approximately 780,000 square kilometres, would be needed.

Economies of scale stop with wind. One hundred windy square metres, a good size for a Manhattan apartment, could power an electric lamp or two, but not the laundry equipment, microwave oven, plasma TV, and computer. New York City would require every square metre of Connecticut to become a wind farm to fully power all its electrical equipment and gadgets.

Ausubel gives short thrift to solar power too, which he points out still operates at less than 10% efficiency despite three decades of research. A 1000 MWe photovoltaic solar cell plant would require about 150 square kilometres plus land for storage and retrieval.

The energy density of nuclear fuel is between 10,000 and 100,000 times as great as the most “efficient” carbon fuel, methane. While the full footprint of uranium mining might add a few hundred square kilometres and there are considerations of waste storage, safety and security, the dense heart of the atom has much more to offer than so-called renewables in terms of powering the world, Ausubel believes.

“My conviction is that our best energy doctrine is decarbonisation, and let us complete it within one hundred years or sooner,” he says, “this will happen only if we abandon wishful thoughts of a renewable Eden.

Ausubel, who is Director of the Program for the Human Environment and Senior Research Associate at The Rockefeller University in New York City, provides details of his analysis in Int. J. Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, 2007, 1, 229-243