1. natural gas (met - Polywell Nuclear Fusion

Robert Samuelson in the May 11 Washington Post has said that we have NO viable
replacement for fossil fuels:
1. natural gas (methane) is a greenhouse gas, 20 to 80 times worse than CO2;
large amounts of methane escape to the atmosphere during fracking.
2. coal plants with CCS (carbon capture and storage) leak huge quantities of CO2,
and the use of coal kills millions of people in many ways every year.
3. solar and wind energy are unaffordable because they only operate 10 to 40
percent of the time and therefore require vast back-ups and redundance.
4. nuclear fission plants require dangerous neutrons for chain reactions, and have
radioactive fuel and waste. (Chernobyl, TMI, Fukushima Daiichi)
5. biofuels such a corn ethanol are a nonsensical pork barrel fiasco. Their
production consumes as much fossil fuel energy as the energy produced.
Aneutronics (p-B11 fusion – the focus of this book) could quite likely be a viable
replacement for fossil fuels, but our US Energy Department ignores the technology
necessary for aneutronics, and the US Navy could not fund it adequately so the
agreement between EMC2 (the aneutronics contractor) and the Navy was allowed
to lapse. Navy could not get the $40 million needed for proper project funding
from the Defense Department, because the Energy Department is required to
develop Navy Nuclear Propulsion - This is a published policy. 1 EMC2 is seeking
private venture capital to continue. The Energy Department is not interested but
China and Korea are. Iran has already spent $8 million on the necessary
technology. To assure that the United States retains this vital technology that was
invented by an American and developed with US taxpayer dollars,
Congress should immediately MOVE $40 MILLION FROM THE FOSSIL FUEL (CCS
PROJECT) LINE TO A NEW POLYWELL (EMC2) LINE IN THE 2015 ENERGY BUDGET .
1
http://nnsa.energy.gov/ourmission (See “Powering the Nuclear Navy.” NNSA is part of the Energy Department.)
i
ii
Aneutronics:
to Slow
the Rising Tide
3rd Edition
William W. Flint
© 2014
iii
iv
Dedicated to the people I thought about while writing this book,
All of them making me think,
“If Congress doesn’t understand, they won’t fix the problem in time,
and they certainly won’t fix it, if they think the voters don’t care.”
William W. Flint
Port Angeles, USA.
June 23, 2014
v
vi
Aneutronics:
to Slow
the Rising Tide
3rd Edition
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Aneutronic Fusion: Lots of Energy. No Radiation. No CO2
Chapter 2: Correlation and Divergence: Choosing the Future
Chapter 3: The Clean Coal Con: Drug Dealer Ethics without Drugs
Chapter 4: Methane Madness: CO2 Greenhouse Gas Times 80!
Chapter 5: Green Energy: Costly and Immature
Chapter 6: Energy: A Decidedly Depraved Department
Summary
Author’s Vita
One Small Favor (Maybe Two)
1
3
13
27
35
41
51
59
61
62
vii
Me: The US Department of Energy is not doing its job and they’re
wasting our money.
Matt: So? It’s a government agency. That’s what they do.
Me: I know; but this is serious. In this case, their neglect could kill a
lot of people.
Matt: Hate to break it to you, but that’s another thing they do.
Me: No. You don’t get it. I mean their mistakes could kill a LOT of
people, as in millions. If AGW keeps getting worse, it will kill
millions.
Matt: You don’t really believe that anthropogenic crap, do you? It’s
all a hoax, you know…
Me: That’s why I wrote this little book. Take a look at it. It might
surprise you.
Matt: …and isn’t AGW supposed to be the reason for all those solar
collectors and windmills?
Me: Wind and solar are way too expensive. We need aneutronic
nuclear fusion – it’s the only thing I can think of that shows any
promise of saving us.
Matt: Nuclear energy? That’s really dangerous!
Me: It turns out that aneutronic fusion is safe nuclear energy. It
might actually be able to save us from global warming and the
US Department of Energy is ignoring it. That’s what this little
book is really about.
viii
Introduction
In 2014 the United States will use energy at an average hourly rate of 3 trillion
watts.2 About 84 percent of it will come from fossil fuels (coal, petroleum, natural
gas). The use of fossil fuels kills about one million people per year world-wide
and continues to cause horrendous environmental destruction. 3 To stop the killing
and keep the planetary environment tolerable for future generations, we must find
an effective and less hazardous replacement for fossil fuels, so we can severely
curtail their use.
But every fossil fuel replacement being considered and funded by the Obama
administration and the US Department of Energy is unacceptable:
1. Natural gas production leaks methane (a potent greenhouse gas) in volumes
sufficient to cancel any possible advantage that it might have. 4
2. Biofuel production consumes fossil fuels equal in energy to the biofuels
produced, canceling any possible advantage for biofuels. 5
3. Deuterium-Tritium fusion (ITER & NIF) uses expensive, radioactive fuel,
produces neutrons and radioactive waste, and will not be commercially ready for at
least 20 years. 6
4. Solar replacement may cost $45 Trillion, doesn’t work 24/7 & requires backup.
5. Wind replacement may cost $28 Trillion, doesn’t work 24/7 & requires backup.
6. Nuclear Fission replacement may cost $17.5 Trillion; it emits neutrons, uses
radioactive fuel, and produces radioactive waste.
7. Coal w/CCS7 replacement may cost $16.5 Trillion, but it will still emit
greenhouse gases; and the coal will continue to kill tens of thousands of people.
Clearly numbers 4 through 7 are completely unaffordable.
There IS an energy technology with NONE of the disadvantages above. It’s not
adequately funded, and it’s not supported by the Energy Department. That new
technology is ANEUTRONICS - the p-B11 reaction – it’s the focus of this book.
2
EIA estimates US will use total of 25897 Twh/y from ALL sources in 2014. 25897/(365x24) = 3 Tw/hr
Chapter 3
4 Chapter 4
5 Chapter 5
6 Chapter 1
3
7
Carbon Capture and Sequestration – process of capturing the CO2 produced and putting it underground.
1
2
Chapter 1: Aneutronic Fusion
Lots of Energy. No Radiation. No CO2
Aneutronic fusion can potentially make vast quantities of electricity without releasing
greenhouse gases or free neutrons. Neither the fuel nor the waste products are
radioactive. The Navy has already funded and completed much of the basic research,
and aneutronic fusion can be ready for commercial use in as little as eight years.
One example of Aneutronic Fusion is the p-B11 reaction between a proton and a
Boron 11 nucleus. When the proton joins a Boron 11, the combination is unstable and
breaks up into three high energy (2 million electron volt) Helium nuclei.
The p-B11 reaction is aneutronic — no free neutrons.
The proton (P) is the nucleus of an ordinary hydrogen atom (H), which comes from
ordinary water (H2O). The Boron 11 comes from ordinary Borax. (Once hauled from
Death Valley by 20 mule teams!) The Helium nuclei (He) are ordinary Helium — same
as the Helium found in a child’s balloon. This aneutronic fusion reaction is completely
safe. The fuel is from ordinary H2O and Borax. The reaction has no free neutrons; and
the “waste” produced is Helium. This is NOT a “typical” nuclear reaction for three
reasons: 1) It has NO free neutrons (which turns out to be a huge advantage because
neutrons easily penetrate metal or concrete; and when free neutrons strike ordinary
atoms, they are made unstable and radioactive). 2) The fuel is NOT radioactive. 3) The
“waste” is NOT radioactive.
3
note: the information below is important, but if you can’t remember exponential notation, formulas,
and high school physics, skip the box, and continue with the text below it.
The total mass of the reacting fuel (p and B11) is very slightly more than the total mass of the “waste”
products (the three He). Mass of P and B11 = 12.0178 amu (atomic mass units) and mass of the three
He = 12.0078 amu; so the loss in mass during the reaction is:
12.0178 amu - 12.0078 amu = 0.0100 amu, which equals 1.66 x 10-29 kg
Einstein’s law of Special Relativity says that E = Δmc 2 where E = energy produced, Δm = the loss of
mass, and c2 = the speed of light squared = 9 x 1016 m2/sec2. So we substitute 1.66 x 10-29 kg for Δm,
and multiply it by 9 x 1016 m2/sec2, obtaining 1.5 x 10-12 Joules of energy per fusion, which isn’t very
much because it’s just the energy from the fusion of one atom of Hydrogen and one atom of Boron.
What if we used two teaspoons of Boron 11 instead of just one atom? Two teaspoons of Boron 11
weigh about 11g and this quantity of Boron happens to contain 6.02 x 10 23 atoms (an amount called a
“mole” or Avogadro’s number for those of you who are chemically inclined). If each atom of Boron
11 can contribute 1.5 x 10-12 Joules/atom, and we have 6.02 x 1023 atoms/2 tsp, then we can multiply
to obtain 9 x 1011 Joules. This turns out to be a LOT of energy and it is a number you need to
remember!
An F-16 fighter with a typical load of fuel and weapons weighs about 14,400 kg. Also consider that
the speed required for a body to escape the Earth’s gravity and go to the moon is 11,201 m/sec. Now
the kinetic energy required to give an F-16 that kind of speed is (½)mv2 or (½) x 14,400 x 112012 or 9
x 1011 Joules! Remember?
In an aneutronic reaction, two teaspoons of Boron 11 contain enough energy to send an F-16 to the
moon!
Two teaspoons of Boron can send an F-16 to the moon!
4
The hundreds of large nuclear power plants scattered around the planet depend upon FISSION (with
two I’s) — the splitting of Uranium atoms into smaller ones. The splitting of Uranium below may be
the most common fission reaction in the nuclear power industry.
Neutron “splitting” of Uranium makes more neutrons that can do even more “splitting”
FISSION (with two I’s) is one kind of nuclear reaction, but it’s NOT THE SAME as FUSION (with
U and I). FUSION (with U and I) FUSES small atoms together. There are no fusion power plants yet,
but the fusion of Deuterium (Hydrogen2 — a hydrogen with one proton and one neutron) and Tritium
(Hydrogen3 — a hydrogen with one proton and two neutrons) may be the most common reaction in
fusion research.
The D-T (Deuterium-Tritium) Fusion Reaction
5
60 to 70 years ago, in the middle of the twentieth century, nuclear fission was believed to be a source
of energy that would be cheaper and more reliable than coal or natural gas. Large utility companies
and many nations built hundreds of multi-billion dollar nuclear reactors to make electricity. But more
recently nuclear fission has fallen into disfavor:
1. The Uranium reactor fuel is a problem. The pitchblende tailings, left over from mining the
Uranium are radioactive, and the tailings make people who live nearby sick — in some cases,
fatally so. Workers who process the Uranium into nuclear fuel are also exposed to
radioactivity and sometimes they get sick and die.
2. The reactors themselves are another problem. The nuclear reaction rate is controlled by
electrically actuated mechanical control rods that slide in and out of the reactor. Sometimes the
control rods fail to work as advertised, and the reactor can no longer be controlled. This
sometimes causes the reactor to overheat, melt, or explode, destroying a multi-billion dollar
reactor, and occasionally rupturing the reactor containment building, leading to the release of
radioactivity into the environment. This has actually happened three times: at Chernobyl in
Ukraine, at Three Mile Island in the US, and at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan.
3. The chain reaction of the Uranium nuclear fuel releases huge numbers of neutrons which can
easily penetrate metal or concrete. When a neutron strikes an atom’s nucleus it often makes
the atom radioactive and dangerous.
4. Radioactive waste and spent fuel are hazardous, and it seems that people are unable to store it
safely. Some lasts for tens of thousands of years, it can leak out into the environment, and no
one wants nuclear waste stored permanently anywhere near them. Also, some Uranium fuel
and other nuclear waste can be reprocessed into nuclear weapons for potential use by rogue
nations and terrorist groups.
Serious fusion research started at about the same time as fission reactor development — about 60 or 70
years ago. But useful fusion power plants have remained elusive up to the present day — always at
least “20 to 30 years in the future.” The US Department of Energy has poured about four billion
dollars into Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) fusion research at the ITER Tokamak in Caderache, France, and
about five billion dollars more into D-T research at the giant NIF lasers in Livermore, California.
Neither effort shows much promise of useful fusion energy anytime soon.
1. The neutrons produced by D-T fusion have liabilities similar to the neutrons produced by
fission: they can easily penetrate metal or concrete. When the neutrons strike atomic nuclei
they make the atoms radioactive and dangerous; producing more nuclear waste with the same
attendant problems
2. The tritium fuel required for D-T fusion is radioactive and expensive. It will kill anyone
unfortunate enough to breathe it, and it costs $200 million per kilogram. A 1000 megawatt DT fusion plant would use more than five kilograms of tritium per year, making the fuel
alone cost one billion dollars per year! ITER is planning a process to breed tritium from
lithium, but commercial tritium breeding is probably 20 years away.
Please permit me –once again- to point out that aneutronic fusion produces NO neutrons and NO
radioactive nuclear waste; the fuel is NOT radioactive and is comparatively cheap. Ten 100 megawatt
aneutronic fusion plants (1000 megawatts total) would require less than 410 kilograms of Boron 11
per year at a cost of about $5000 per kilogram or $2,050,000 for fuel per year. Thus, the fuel for an
6
Aneutronic reactor would cost about 0.00205 times (0.2 of 1%) as much as fuel for a D-T
reactor, where both reactors have the same electrical output. (2,050,000/1,000,000,000 =
0.00205)
How to Make an Aneutronic Reaction Happen
We need real hardware -a reactor- to make aneutronic fusion happen. Several different aneutronic
reactors are under development. I happen to like the one we’re going to describe: it turns high energy
(2 million volt), double plus charged helium ions into electricity.
To make the electricity, we place a positively charged metal plate in the path of streaming high energy
positive helium ions. The ions repel the positive charges in the metal plate, and push them off the plate
and into an attached wire conductor. As the positive charges are being pushed down off the plate,
negative electron charges are being removed from the plate by the positive Helium ions which attract
them. As the Helium ions stream past, removing electrons, additional electrons come rushing up the
wire to replace the ones that were lost, and -bazingga- we have an electric current! It is direct current
and it has a potential of more than one million volts. Such high voltage DC is ideally suited to
economical long distance power transmission. No expensive generators and transformers are required.
The high energy double plus helium ions are made by forcing hydrogen ions into a shotgun marriage
with boron 11 ions. Such marriages are notoriously unstable and break up almost immediately into
three pieces: three of the high energy double plus helium ions. The hydrogen ions come from ordinary
hydrogen that we get by electrolyzing water; and the boron 11 is separated from ordinary Borax.
Hydrogen ions from Water and Boron 11 ions from Borax.
So how does this shotgun marriage happen? How to we make the hydrogen and boron 11 ions fuse
together? In brief, we use the Polywell invented by Dr. Robert Bussard.
7
The Polywell went public when a Google tech talk by Dr. Bussard went viral on the internet in
November 2007. Science fiction fans first read of it in an excellent Analog article by Tom Ligon
released in late 2007.
The WB-6 Polywell on Left; Confined Swarm of Electrons on Right
The Polywell uses multiple pairs of big opposing cryogenically cooled super-conducting magnetic
coils to confine a hugely negative swarm of electrons at the common center of those sets of paired
coils. The negative swarm attracts and captures the positive Hydrogen and Boron ions. They bob
violently back and forth inside the swarm until they collide. When they do, the ionic motion is violent
enough to make them fuse. When they fuse, the unstable marriage is consummated within an
infinitesimal fraction of a second. But it always ends in a three way breakup: the three double-plus He
ions fly violently apart and into the positively charged plate that we described earlier. The entire set-up
–including the plate- is contained in a vacuum chamber.
The three or more sets of opposed pairs of magnetic coils are themselves given a positive charge. And
the entire charged set is called a magrid. The magrid attracts and holds the electrons. The positive
charge is the bait that attracts the electrons; and the three or more opposed pairs of magnetic fields
from the coils are the trap that holds them. When an electron tries to escape from the swarm, it
encounters the magnetic field created by the coils.
There is a rule in physics, sometime called the “Left-Hand Rule” that describes the behavior of
electrons when approaching a magnetic field: extend the fingers of your left hand in the direction of
the magnetic field (direction a compass points if held in that field); point your thumb in the direction
of the electron’s motion (see diagram on left, next page). The electron will be deflected in the
direction of the open palm of your hand (out of the page).
8
William W. Flint. The First Light: Introductory Physics. pg 235 ©1990
For as long as the electron is moving in the field, the deflection does not stop, so the electron is
continuously deflected back out of the field in a curve (above right), and sent back from whence it
came. The action of the electron swarm, pushing out on the magnetic field, pushes the field out into a
spherical shape called a wiffleball. Polywell researchers and the US Navy identify Polywell models in
terms of wiffleball numbers: WB-6, WB-7, WB-100 etc.
Yes, the double plus helium ions are alpha particles; and yes, alpha particles are a form of nuclear
radiation. However, alpha particles are by far the most benign form of radiation. You can stop a
typical alpha with an ordinary sheet of paper. The alphas used in the Polywell are 100% contained by
its stainless steel vacuum chamber in the same place that they are produced. As soon as an alpha picks
up two electrons, it becomes a neutral Helium and it is not radiation any more. If the vacuum chamber
is breached, the alpha production stops instantly. The Polywell will not work at all without a vacuum.
No alphas would be released.
Yes this is a nuclear reaction. We call it fusion because that’s what happens first: the proton (hydrogen
ion) fuses with the Boron 11. And we call it fusion because if it were fission there would be free
neutrons and there are no free neutrons.
The proton-Boron 11 reaction is a good nuclear reaction because there are no free neutrons. The evil
that so many attribute to nuclear has its roots in the fission chain reactions made possible by free
neutrons. Nuclear weapons would be impossible without neutron chain reactions. Fukushima Daiichi
would never have happened without neutron chain reactions; Three Mile Island would never have
happened without neutron chain reactions; and Chernobyl would never have happened without
neutron chain reactions. The proton-Boron 11 reaction is good because it does not involve neutrons.
Yes, there has been some authoritative criticism: MIT doctoral student Todd Rider has calculated
that in a Polywell using deuterium fuel, bremsstrahlung x-ray losses will exceed fusion power
production by at least 20 percent.8 His conclusions were that the device suffered from
"fundamental flaws”. His modeling of the system uses assumptions that differ from Bussard’s.
Once commercial viability has been demonstrated, we will be able to deploy Polywells quite rapidly.
Power plants will no longer be constructed on site, over many years, as they are with hydroelectric,
coal-fired, solar, and old fission reactors. The vacuum chamber containing the reactor will be small,
8
"A general critique of internal-electrostatic confinement fusion systems" Plasma Physics, June 1995, Dr. Todd
Rider, MIT
9
about four meters in total diameter. It will be portable, so it can be loaded for air-transport and shipped
to the site in less than 24 hours. When it comes to power output decisions, the physics pretty much
dictates a 1.5 meter radius (pg 56) for the coils, so the Polywell will only come in one size: 70
megawatts. (100 megawatts total, but 30 megawatts is lost to heat inside the reactor.) When we make
the Polywell significantly smaller, the power output is negligible. If we make it much larger it will
melt the coils before it really gets started. But with everything one standard size, the mass production
can be blazing fast and the costs will ultimately be minimal. I’m guessing that utility start-up costs for
a Polywell will be about two hundred million dollars per unit, about half the cost per megawatt
compared to CCS coal or nuclear fission; far less than solar or wind; and much, much more reliable.
If you are using all your power locally, then you really don’t need the high voltage direct current
provided by the Polywell; so how do you convert one million volts DC into 120/240 volts AC? We
will likely use a new DC transformer developed and patented by an earlier Polywell researcher, Dr.
Richard Nebel, who now works for Tibbar Technologies. After we get the voltage down to a
manageable level, we will use an inverter — similar to those used in motor homes- to change it to AC.
Let’s calculate the cost of installing enough Polywells to generate all the energy used in the United
States. From ALL sources — petrol, methane, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro — the U.S. uses an
average of 3 TRILLION watt-hours of energy per hour. We divide the 3 trillion watts by 70 million
watts average output, then multiple the result by $200 million per power plant:
(3,000,000,000,000 watts/70,000,000 watts/plant) x $200,000,000/plant
= $8,600,000,000,000
The cost to totally replace all US energy sources with Polywells would be about $8.6 trillion.
Let’s compare the Polywell with some other alternatives (“Cost” is for 3 trillion watts output):
3 Trillion watts in Coal-fired plants with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) will cost almost
twice as much as 3 Trillion watts in Polywells; and after all that money has been spent on CCS coal,
the plant will still be putting CO2 into the air!
10
Methane and Methane CCS cost way less than the Polywell, but Methane is a greenhouse gas, 20 to
80 times worse than CO2 — depending on the time span used for the comparison; and the methane
leaks, during fracking, production, and shipping, completely cancel out any CO2 reduction benefit
achieved by using methane.
Geothermal is less than CCS coal, but more than the Polywell, and it does leak some CO2 into the
atmosphere; and Wind and Solar are vastly more expensive — many times as much as the Polywell.
When release of greenhouse gases and price are considered, aneutronic fusion with the Polywell
seems to be the best choice.
If the Polywell becomes our primary energy source, will we have enough Boron to last –say- a few
centuries into the future, or will we be looking at a Boron shortage in a few years? The USGS
estimates the total Boron reserves of the United States to be about forty million metric tons or 40
billion kilograms — most of it is in Death Valley and the Mohave Desert. The total Boron reserves for
the planet are about five times the US supply. A standard hundred megawatt Polywell will consume
about 40 kilograms of Boron in a year of continuous operation. If we divide our 40 billion kilogram
US supply by that 40 kilograms of Boron per year for one Polywell, we get one billion years. If we
assume that a few years from now, the US will be running one thousand Polywells, then the US
supply of Boron would last a million years. Also Boron is the tenth most common element in the
oceans — by the time our national supplies run out, we will probably have the technology to extract
Boron from the ocean.
The only so-called waste product is helium gas, which is not a waste product at all but a lucrative byproduct. This is the same helium gas that is used to lift blimps (airships); as a protective gas for arc
welding and semiconductors; in deep-sea diving; and as cryogenic cooling for superconductors,
including the Polywell’s own superconducting magnetic coils.
Aneutronic Fusion Recap
Aneutronic fusion can release vast amounts of energy. For example, two teaspoons of Boron, in an
aneutronic reaction with ordinary Hydrogen can release enough energy to send a 14.4 metric ton
aircraft to the moon.
Both the nuclear fission of Uranium and the nuclear fusion of Deuterium and Tritium (D-T Fusion)
will release free neutrons. These free neutrons can make ordinary substances radioactive. If they
penetrate a human being, they can render the inside of that person radioactive, and he or she will die.
In addition, both Tritium and Uranium are themselves already radioactive.
The p-B11 aneutronic reaction does NOT release neutrons. The fuel for the p-B11 aneutronic reaction
is NOT radioactive, and it is about two-tenths of one percent as expensive as the Tritium fuel for D-T
fusion. Yet the US Department of Energy is spending billions of dollars to study D-T reactions, and
NOTHING to study aneutronic fusion.
To make fusion happen, two atomic nuclei must be made to collide at great speed.
11
Conveniently, atomic nuclei are positively charged, so all one needs to get that great speed is a dense
cloud of negative charges. Positive atomic nuclei released on opposite sides of a negative charge
cloud, are violently attracted into the cloud where they collide and fuse.
We use a positively charged set of three or more opposed pairs of magnetic coils to attract and hold a
cloud of negative electrons. The positive charge is the bait that attracts the electrons; and the three or
more opposed pairs of magnetic fields from the coils are the trap that holds them.
A positive Boron ion and a positive Hydrogen ion are attracted by the cloud of negative electrons. The
positive ions smash together inside the cloud, and fuse to make three high energy (2 million electron
volt) double plus Helium ions. We use the double plus Helium ions to make electricity.
The Polywell may prove to be the world’s cheapest source of safe, reliable, carbon free energy.
12
Chapter 2: Correlation and Divergence
Choosing the Future
Sunspots appear to be black spots that creep gradually across the face of the sun. First observed
through heavily smoked glass in 364 BC, the variations in sunspots have been observed on a
regular basis for thousands of years. At times known as the solar minimum, there may be no
sunspots visible at all, but five or six years later, at the solar maximum there may be more than
100 sunspots visible. Solar irradiance is the power of the sun falling on Earth’s surface,
measured in watts per square meter and including the entire electromagnetic spectrum (visible
light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio, microwaves, etc.). Solar irradiance and sunspot activity rise and
fall together, that is, they correlate.
NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center
The heavy red graph line above represents a daily average of varying solar irradiance; and the
heavy blue graph line, a daily average of varying sunspot activity. The thin vertical lines
represent daily maxima and minima.
Since solar irradiance is a measure of the sun’s local power per square meter, it seems reasonable
to suppose that variations in Earth’s surface temperature might follow variations in solar
irradiance in the same way that irradiance follows the sunspots. People have been looking for
just such a correlation for a long time.
13
Q.-B. Lu Cosmic-ray-driven reaction and greenhouse effect of halogenated molecules
Variations in global temperature (orange dots) are plotted above, on the same graph with
variations in solar irradiance (wavy purple line). It may be possible for one to imagine a very
crude or approximate correlation up until the year 1980, when the two graph lines clearly
diverge – each taking its own separate path. Why do you suppose the graph lines diverge so
sharply in 1980?
It also seems reasonable to ask whether sunspots and Earth’s surface temperature might
correlate.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/03/week-in-review-10/
The thick red line is an eleven-year average of sunspot counts, and the thick blue line is an
eleven year average of the yearly surface temperatures. Again, if you stand on one foot, close
one eye and cock your head just so, it may be possible to see a crude correlation up until about
1980, where again the graph lines sharply diverge. Some people think that this divergence –
this anomalous increases in temperature- is due to an increasing greenhouse effect caused by an
increase in atmospheric CO2. The greenhouse effect is an accepted scientific concept: that
certain atmospheric gasses such as CO2 are transparent to sunlight, but they are somewhat
opaque to heat. Such gases let sunlight IN to heat the earth, but they do not let much of the heat
from the warmed earth OUT. As CO2 content of the atmosphere increases, the “greenhouse
14
effect” increases, letting progressively less heat escape from the earth. Radiative forcing is a
measure of the greenhouse effect. It is the difference between solar irradiance and the power
(watts) per square meter that escapes from the earth. To calculate this, subtract the outgoing
power from the incoming power. When we examine a graph of recent radiative forcing we see
that the greenhouse effect is clearly increasing.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html
You can see that about 65 percent of the forcing is due to CO2 gas (blue), while about 17 percent
is due to CH4 methane gas (light green). To deal with the greenhouse effect, we must pay
attention to the concentrations of CO2 and CH4.
The graph lines plotted below -the CO2 concentration (light green) and global temperature (blue)
- seem to suggest that CO2 concentration and temperature could indeed be correlated. They
certainly seem to be rising at the same approximate rate and time.
http://www.c2es.org/facts-figures/trends/co2-temp
15
The concentration of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere has changed over the past thousand years:
l
How would you account for the sudden and dramatic increase of the “Mean Carbon Dioxide
Level” starting in about 1850 in the above graph? Do you think it at likely that there is a
connection between the graph above, and the one below?
Can you describe the connection between the two graphs?
We humans have been burning fossil fuels at ever increasing rates. The blue graph line on the
next page shows our increasing use of coal (Solids) since 1770, the red line is petroleum
(Liquids), and the green line natural gas. The black line shows the total of all three plus cement
16
production and gas flaring. The steeply rising black line shows that we have been dumping
rapidly increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere over the past seventy years.
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo_2010.html
It is hard to ignore the connection between the above three graphs. The atmospheric content of
CO2 has risen quite rapidly at the same time that we humans have sharply increased our dumping
of CO2 into the atmosphere.
The oceans cover 80 percent of Earth’s surface, and –being mostly water- they store the excess
heat from the increasing greenhouse effect much more effectively than the land. The heat content
of Earth’s surface is mostly stored in its oceans. Here’s how Earth’s heat content has changed
from 1961 to 2008.
Chart provided by NOAA
Obviously, the heat content of the oceans, in shades of blue, has –pretty much- been climbing
ever since 1967. The pinkish-tan shading representing the increased heat content of the land, ice
and atmosphere is trivial alongside the oceans. The increasing heat content shows that the earth
is getting warmer. Here is a similar graph from a different source:
17
Saying that we humans did not cause global warming seems naive, yet many reputable people
have been suggesting just this. Let’s take a serious look at a few of their claims. Consider the
following excerpts from Rush Limbaugh’s broadcast in April of 2013. Rush’s dialogue is in
Italics. The quote marks are Rush quoting from the Economist magazine:
…the manmade global warming story is a hoax…Anyway, “Over the past 15 years air
temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat” they haven’t moved; in fact, they may
be lowering, “while greenhouse gas emissions have continued to soar”…The actual
length of time that there hasn’t been any warming is now 20 years, despite all that
carbon dioxide put in the air, and they can’t figure it out. Well, it’s very simple. They
were bat-excrement crazy! They’re just flat-out wrong. Another story: Sunspot activity
has slowed down, and that means global warming has stopped, and the earth is
beginning to cool.
Is Rush really right? It’s time for a quick fact check. Out of the last 134 years, the ten warmest
years on record all happened since 1998:
Table by NOAA Jan 21, 2014
Yet if one considers the 51-80 Anomaly –the difference between each single year’s average
temperature and the average temperature from 1951 to 1980 — one is forced to concede that the
temperature has indeed been flat. Although Rush is technically correct about the temperature, he
fails to point out that these flat temperatures are like the flat top of a “mesa”. The temperatures
are flat -yes- but they are already high, and they are heating the oceans more and more with each
18
passing year. In his quote above, Rush also said that “Sunspot activity has slowed down, and
that means global warming has stopped.” He is probably referring to a comparison of sunspot
numbers and Earth’s climate over the past 1150 years, which found that our global temperature
changes closely match solar sunspot activity (Usoskin 2005). However, as we have just seen,
temperatures since 1980 have risen while the solar activity has shown little to no long-term trend.
This led the study to conclude that, “…this most recent warming episode must have another
source.” Indeed, other measurements indicate that the sun has shown a slight cooling trend since
1960, while at the same time global temperatures have been warming; so the sun and Earth’s
climate have been moving in opposite directions, and the sun has actually contributed a slight
cooling influence in recent decades which would help explain the plateau at the top of the mesa.
In his 2006 film Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President Al Gore demonstrated a clear
correspondence between changes in temperature and atmospheric CO2 as measured in the Vostok
ice cores from Antarctica. Unfortunately, he failed to point out that for much -but not all- of the
graph, changes in temperature led changes in CO2, which of course suggests that increases in
temperature cause increases in atmospheric CO2, which is opposite to the suggestion that
increased CO2 causes global warming.
One year later, in an equally infamous film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, his error was
exploited: “What (Gore) did not say was that the carbon dioxide data lags the corresponding
global temperature data by 800 years. This lag has been confirmed by several subsequent icecore surveys. …There is no evidence that the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has
ever determined the global temperature, but there is a rational explanation for the concentration
of atmospheric carbon dioxide increasing as a result of an increase in the global temperature: the
oceans, which cover most of the surface of the planet, are by far the largest source of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere…Carbon dioxide becomes less soluble in water as the temperature of
water increases and more soluble as the temperature falls. Thus, as the surface temperature of the
planet rises, the oceans release dissolved carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and as the surface
temperature falls, the oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However…lower
depths of the oceans may take many centuries to respond to a change in the surface temperature.
19
This is consistent with the observed 800-year lag between the global temperature and the
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.” The film accused Al Gore of leaving out important
details. But The Great Global Warming Swindle also failed to tell the whole story. Initial
increases in temperature are explained by changes in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s
surface. And the lag between the rise in temperature and CO2 is –indeed- explained as in the
film; but there’s even more to the story! The CO2 freshly released from the ocean now acts as a
greenhouse gas, which accelerates the warming trend and leads to the release of even more
CO2. In other words, the increasing atmospheric CO2 from the ocean is the cause of further
warming which causes the ocean to release even more CO2 etc. This accelerating “back and
forth” feedback effect is necessary to account for the shifts between the cooling ice ages and the
warming periods, because the changes in solar irradiation alone are far too weak to cause the
warming trend from an ice age to a warm period such as our present interglacial.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a scientific intergovernmental body
under the auspices of the United Nations, set up at the request of member governments. With the
help of hundreds of climatologists, geophysicists, and other scientists from dozens of countries
around the world, the IPCC has been assessing the scientific, technical and socio-economic
information relevant to the understanding of climate change. Based on their studies, the IPCC
has selected four specific future Radiative Forcing values to represent possible futures for Earth.
(Recall the Radiative Forcing measurement of the greenhouse effect on pg 15.) These future
Forcing values are called RCPs or Representative Concentration Pathways. The Forcing
values selected are 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5. They are measures of total future greenhouse effects in
watts/m2, and they are a measure of our choices for Earth’s future. Each future RCP value is
a consequence of the amount of CO2 and CH4 that we will choose to put into the atmosphere.
IPCC AR5 WG1
We can choose RCP 2.6 -the above black line, 1.6 C (3 F) of warming- and dump decreasing
amounts of carbon into the atmosphere each year, for a total of 270 GtC. Or we can choose RCP
8.5 -the above red line, 4.3 C (10 F) of warming- and dump increasing amounts of carbon into
the atmosphere for a total of 1685 GtC by the year 2100. Or we can choose a middle ground,
20
RCP 4.5 -the above light blue line, 2.4 C (4 F) of warming- and dump constant amounts of
carbon into the atmosphere until the year 2050, then taper it down to the year 2100 for a total of
780 GtC.9 (This amount just happens to be equal to the total of all the known reserves of fossil
fuels that we had as of 2010. If we found no more fossil fuel, then we would be completely out in
2100.) RCP 8.5 -the above red line, 4.3 C (10 F) of warming- is a continuation of our present
course. It is the “business as usual” choice. And it assumes we are going to find a LOT more
fossil fuel! Let’s consider each of the three choices and their consequences in more depth:
Choice RCP 2.6: The decreasing carbon emission pathway:
1.6 C (3 F) of warming.
1 to 2 m (3.3 to 6.5 ft) of sea level increase plus 3 m (10ft) surge in violent storms.10
15 percent increase in rainfall in rainy areas.
Less fresh water -surface and ground- in dry areas.
Loss of coral reefs and their biodiversity.
Shift of marine species away from equator and toward the poles.
Choice RCP 4.5: The constant carbon emission pathway:
2.4 C (4.3 F) of warming.
2 to 5 m (6.5 to 16 ft) of sea level increase plus 3 m (10ft) surge in violent storms.
27 percent increase in rainfall in rainy areas.
Increased droughts in tropical dry areas.
Ocean acidification, affecting all species from phytoplankton up to whales.
Hellish cities, heat stress mortality, serious flooding, increasing starvation.
Choice RCP 8.5: The increasing “business as usual” emission path:
4.3 C (8 F) of warming.
4 to 12 m (13 to 39 ft) of sea level increase plus 3 m (10ft) surge in violent storms.
50 percent increase in rainfall in rainy areas.
Widespread wildfires: loss of lives, property, and ecosystem integrity.
All life that CAN move (including people) WILL move toward the poles. Trees, plants,
and animals depending on them cannot move fast enough. The Amazon and other jungles
will die, releasing CO2 to the atmosphere.
Few crops left for the tropics; tropical farmers can’t work in the heat anyway. No food in
the tropics. Starving tropical people will migrate to higher latitudes whether they are
wanted there or not. War.
When my father-in-law came back from World War II, he built a house for his mother, about 10
feet above the high tide mark on the Straits of Juan de Fuca. The peak of the house is about 25
feet above the ground. (35 feet above sea level.) If you vote for “business as usual” you are voting
9We
produce 1 CO2 molecule for each atom of carbon that we burn. So it sometimes makes more sense to reference
the carbon that we put into the atmosphere, rather than the CO 2. The carbon that we put into the atmosphere is
prodigious, so we measure our carbon in gigatons: 1 gigaton of carbon per year = 1 GtC/y. 1 GtC =
1,000,000,000,000 kg = 2,200,000,000,000 lb or 2.2 trillion lb.
10Current events have outdated this option. The collapse of the WAIS is already happening. Sea level WILL increase
by 10 feet. See Gillis and Chang. “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans as Antarctic Ice Melts” NYT. May 12, 2014
21
at best to put the first floor of that house completely under water during a storm. If you vote for a
Democrat or Republican who takes money from fossil fuel supporters, that is how you are voting!
RCP 8.5 also significantly increases the probability of Abrupt Events. To understand the nature
of an Abrupt Event, consider these examples:





Breaking Point: The point at which the increasing strain in a material causes it to break.
When a material stressed, it gradually bends –sometimes just very slightly- until its
elastic limit is reached: then it breaks — sometimes quite suddenly and without warning.
Boiling Point: As a liquid is heated from room temperature, its vapor pressure steadily
increases, but the liquid’s external appearance does not change much until its vapor
pressure is the same as the atmospheric pressure, then many large bubbles will appear all
at once, and the liquid boils vigorously– sometimes quite suddenly and without warning.
Tipping Point: The point at which a slow, reversible change becomes irreversible, often
with dramatic consequences. You can push on the side of an opened milk carton, tipping
it as much as thirty or forty degrees from the vertical, and the change is reversible; but if
the tipping exceeds forty-five or fifty degrees, the milk carton will pitch over– sometimes
quite suddenly and without warning- and milk will spill irreversibly all over the table and
the carpet. You will be in serious trouble.
Critical Mass: When a neutron splits a Uranium nucleus, more neutrons are released. If
an original split nucleus had a lot of Uranium surrounding it, then the newly released
neutrons probably found other Uranium nuclei to split, and these other nuclei released
even more neutrons which then split more nuclei, and a nuclear (chain) reaction was
sustained. However, if the original nucleus did not have enough Uranium surrounding it,
then the new neutrons probably escaped from the Uranium sample without splitting any
atoms, and nothing much happened. A Critical Mass is the “just right” amount of
Uranium that is required to sustain the nuclear reaction. As little cubes of Uranium are
stacked onto a small pile of Uranium, nothing much happens until critical mass is
reached. Then at that point, a nuclear reaction begins– sometimes quite suddenly and
without warning, and there will be a fatal surge in neutron activity, which will kill the
unlucky Uranium cube stacker. It actually happened to Louis Slotin at Los Alamos in
1946. It was two halves of a Plutonium sphere that touched instead of Uranium cubes; but
the results were the same.
Endpoint: If you wish to know exactly how much acid is in a solution, you can add a few
drops of Phenolphthalein to it. Then you can start adding a measured amount of base
(alkaline solution) of known concentration to the acid solution. At first, nothing will
happen, but as you near the point where the amount of base is exactly equal to the amount
of acid, you will start to see brief little flashes of pink each time another drop of base is
added. When you reach the endpoint, the entire solution will turn pink — sometimes quite
suddenly and without warning.
These are small examples of abrupt events. They were systems that we tried to change: by
stressing, heating or pushing them; or by adding mass or base to them. In all five cases, when a
large scale obvious change finally occurred, it happened quite suddenly and without warning.
22
Our planet Earth contains many different systems that we are stressing or trying to change; and
our understanding of these different systems in many cases is quite limited. We are heating the
ocean, and adding acid to it. We have suspicions about some changes that might occur -quite
suddenly and without warning; but we really don’t know how much we can add, of heat or acid
or some other stress, before an abrupt event happens and all hell breaks loose.
Ice and snow are mostly white, and they reflect light back into space. Water and dirt are dark in
color, and they absorb light. On average, we are melting more snow and ice than we replace.
More and more of the Arctic Ocean -that was once under the white north polar ice cap- is
exposed each year. When the polar ice cap is gone, the dark Arctic Ocean will absorb far more
heat than the white ice cap once did. When the Arctic Ocean warms, it will start to melt the
methane frozen in the shallow underwater shelves that encircle it.
Permafrost –as the name implies- is permanently frozen soil, most often found near the Arctic
Ocean in northern Russia, Alaska, Canada, Norway and Finland. It covers about 20 percent of
the land surface in the Northern Hemisphere. This permafrost is the largest reservoir of readily
accessible carbon dioxide and methane on the entire planet. We have only vague ideas of the
amount of heat required from a warm Arctic Ocean to melt the permafrost and melt the methane
we mentioned in the previous paragraph, releasing the CO2 and CH4 and doubling the amounts of
atmospheric greenhouse gases — suddenly and without warning, abruptly raising global
temperatures, possibly another 3 C (5.4 F).
Fill a glass with ice so it is overflowing, and the ice protrudes above the top of the glass. Add
water, just enough for the ice to barely float. The ice is still protruding above the top of the glass.
Don’t drink it. Just let it sit. The ice will melt, but the glass will not overflow. This is the
situation in the Arctic Ocean: the Arctic sea ice is already floating. When it melts, there will not
be an appreciable increase in sea level. Indeed, much of it has already melted, and sea level is
still pretty much the same.
This is not the situation in Greenland or Antarctica. This ice is not floating: it is sitting on solid
rock. When a new iceberg from Greenland or Antarctica slides into the ocean, it sinks until the
water displaced is equal to the weight of that iceberg. The water displaced increases the sea level
for the entire planet. So how much of an increase would that be? One estimate: a global increase
in sea level of 7 m (23’) for Greenland’s ice cap alone. The portion known as the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet (WAIS) has already begun to disintegrate, however; and it will contribute an increase
of about 3.3 m (10.8’) in sea level. 11 The remainder of the Antarctic ice sheets could contribute
as much as another 60 m (197’), but it is so cold in most of Antarctica that this is unlikely.
Now think about the following scenario:
1. The Arctic Ocean has already been predicted to be ice-free as early as 2034. For reasons
explained earlier, the heating of the Arctic Ocean will be in full swing by then….
2. … which will start to melt the permafrost and the shallow underwater shelves that
encircle the Arctic Ocean, releasing huge quantities of CO2 and Methane….
11
Gillis and Chang. “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans as Antarctic Ice Melts” NYT. May 12, 2014
23
3. …which will quite likely double the atmospheric greenhouse gases and possibly raise
average global temperatures by another 3 C (5.4 F)….
4. …enough to accelerate the melting of the Greenland icecap triggering its collapse and
sudden slippage into the ocean. (The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has already collapsed.)
5. …thus raising the sea level by as much as 10.4 m (34’) by the end of the 21st century.
The chaos following a 10 m (32.8’) increase in sea level will threaten the survival of today’s
civilization:




24
More than 600 million people live in coastal regions that are less than 10 m (32.8’) above
sea level.
Two-thirds of the world’s cities have populations of five million or more living in areas
that are less than 10 m (32.8’) above sea level.
Low-lying coastal regions in developing countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, India,
and China have especially large populations living in coastal areas such as deltas, where
river systems enter the ocean. For example, a 10 m (32.8’) rise in sea level will inundate
everything that is not green or yellow in the picture below. Tens of millions of people
will die.
Large island nations such as the Philippines and Indonesia and small ones such as Tuvalu
and Vanuatu do not have enough land at higher elevations to support displaced coastal
populations.


Today, most of New Orleans is already 8 feet below sea level. The city already depends
on levees for its very existence. If the sea level rises by another 34 feet, the levees will
be swept away, and New Orleans will be under 42 feet (12.8 m) of water.
A 10 m (32.8’) rise in sea level will take out a 20 mile wide strip of the Texas coastline.
Galveston will be underwater. Corpus Christi and Houston will be on the Gulf, and no
longer protected by barrier islands. 1.6 million people will be affected and a thousand
miles of highway will be submerged.
If there is an abrupt collapse of Greenland’s Ice Cap added to the collapse of the West Antarctic
Ice Sheet – which has already happened, the sea level will begin to rise much more rapidly. The
first locally convincing evidence for deniers that an abrupt change is really happening, might
arrive disguised as a major hurricane, inundating and demolishing the East Coast and/or the Gulf
Coast, with a 3 m (9.8’) storm surge riding on top of a recently levitated sea.
We humans will choose Earth’s future; we will decide how much carbon we are going to
dump into the atmosphere over the next 50 years or so; then Earth and our children will
inherit the consequences.
25
Correlation and Divergence Recap and
a Preview of Coming Chapters
Here on Earth, anthropogenic human-caused global warming (AGW) is already
flooding Miami, 12 and it has started the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet,
which will ultimately increase the sea level by more than 10 feet. It is forcing
marine species to migrate toward the Polar Regions, it is destroying whole biomes
such as the Great Barrier Reef, it is melting glaciers and it is influencing the
climate to more violent extremes. If AGW is not arrested, there is a small -and
very real- possibility that it will ultimately destroy our civilization. Yet our alleged
attempts to arrest global warming or otherwise deal with it have mostly seemed to
be either inept or counterproductive; profligate or outrageously extravagant.
To arrest AGW we must sharply reduce our production of greenhouse gases mostly carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4 ) - and we must stop putting these
gases into the atmosphere. Since CO2 comes from the burning of fossil fuels such
as coal, petroleum, and natural gas, we must severely curtail our use of these
carbon-based fossil fuels as soon as possible. Eighty-four percent (84%) of our
planet's energy comes from these fuels. We most replace them with new energy
sources that do not release CO2 when they are used. These sources must be safe,
reliable, and cheap. It may be that the safest, most reliable, lowest cost, carbonfree energy source is aneutronic fusion specifically the p-B11 reaction.
Time is short. We must work aggressively to assure that our nation is properly
funding the smartest, fastest, and best aneutronic fusion research program on
the planet. So far, the government’s aneutronic energy efforts have been
inadequate, yet AGW is upon us already. We must act now!
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/us/florida-finds-itself-in-the-eye-of-the-storm-on-climatechange.html?a=1&m=en-us
12
26
Chapter 3: The Clean Coal Con
Drug Dealer Ethics without Drugs
When coal burns, it makes carbon dioxide (CO2 ) which is a greenhouse gas.
Burning coal accounts for 43% of worldwide CO2 contributions to the atmosphere.
The coal industry is trying to develop effective ways of capturing the CO2 so it can
be pumped underground. The process is called “carbon capture and sequestration”
(CCS). Some CCS demonstration plants have been built, but the process is still
years away from large-scale implementation; and conversion of the planet’s 7000
existing coal-fired plants to this process is many additional years away. Trial
conversion of one old power plant in Canada will cost more than 1.2 billion
dollars. An experimental 582 megawatt coal-fired CCS power plant, under
construction in Mississippi, will cost more than $5 billion dollars. However, these
new CCS facilities only capture from 65 to 90 percent of the CO2 that they
produce. Between 10% and 35% of the CO2 escapes to the atmosphere!
A newer 650 million watt coal-fired plant with CCS is estimated to cost about
$3.4 billion dollars.13 (But it will only work to capacity 95% of the time, so we
multiply that 650 million watt design capacity by 0.95, obtaining 618 million watts
as an average output.)
From ALL sources – petrol, methane, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro - the
United States uses an average of 3 TRILLION watt-hours of energy per
hour.14
Let’s calculate the cost of installing enough new CCS coal-fired plants to generate
our hourly national 3 trillion watts. We divide 3 trillion watts by 618 million watts
average output, then multiple the result by $3.4 billion per power plant:
3,000,000,000,000 watts x $3,400,000,000/plant = $16,500,000,000,000
618,000,000 watts/plant
Cost to replace US energy sources with CCS coal is 16.5 TRILLION dollars!
13
US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity
Generating Plants, US Department of Energy, April 2013.
14 EIA estimates US will use total of 25897 Twh/y from ALL sources in 2014. 25897/(365x24) = 3 Tw/hr
27
Just for comparison purposes, the total of ALL money spent by NASA on ALL of
the US space programs from their beginning in 1958 to 2012 is $790 billion dollars
or 0.79 trillion – not even 1 (one!) trillion dollars! – and when it’s all over, when
that 16.5 TRILLION dollars has all been spent on replacing the old plants with
CCS plants, from 10% to 35% of the of the CO2 that was originally escaping
will STILL be escaping to the atmosphere!
The Covert Costs of Clean Coal
A major EU funded study15 concluded in 2005 found that the cost of producing
electricity from coal would double over its present value, if external costs such
as damage to the environment and to human health, from the airborne
particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, chromium VI and arsenic emissions
produced by coal, were taken into account. External, downstream, fossil fuel
costs amount to 2% of the EU’s entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with coal
the main fossil fuel accountable for this, and this was before the external cost of
global warming from these sources was even included. The environmental and
health costs of coal alone were 6 cents/kWh.
Another report from the National Academy of Sciences 16 concluded that coal-fired
plants cost the U.S. $62 billion per year in environmental and health costs. Yet
another report in The New York Times revealed that coal plants regularly dump
thousands of tons of highly toxic waste into public drinking water sources.
At what point will sober-minded policy makers assess the real costs of coal as they
relate to high rates of disease and death? Earlier in our nation’s history, open
sewers ran through cities. But eventually people realized that open sewers were
sources of diseases. As modern sanitation efforts were implemented, rates of
diseases related to hygiene went down. The burning of coal is an archaic, filthy and
polluting industry that causes high rates of disease and will never be “clean.”
Congress has allocated $7.6 billion in the last decade to advance Carbon
Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technologies for commercialization, the
cornerstone of the Department of Energy’s Coal Program. 17 But recent evidence
suggests CCS technologies won’t be used for decades to come, if ever.
15
External Costs, EUR20198 European Commission, 2003 Dir. Gen. for Research
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/06/06/why-mining-and-burning-coal-could-slowly-be-killing-us/
17 http://www.taxpayer.net/library/article/the-lost-cause-of-clean-coal
16
28
The prospects for CCS were summed up best by Julio Friedmann, the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the Department of Energy, when he
acknowledged “…the technical availability of CCS is independent of its economic
viability.” That is, CCS technologies will become increasingly available in the
coming years, but that doesn’t mean companies will use them. When asked
whether coal power plants would install CCS under current law, Mr. Friedmann
said: “It is unlikely that they would deploy CCS technology, in large part
because they would not be able to get a return on their investments…” That
makes it unlikely that taxpayers will ever get a return on THEIR investment.
Of course, the true costs of using CCS technology may not be fully known for
years. To date, CCS has never been deployed at full-scale for commercial purposes
in a coal-fired power plant. The experimental plant in Kemper County, Mississippi
is set to come online in late 2014. The cost of constructing that plant is now more
than double the original certified estimate of $2.4 billion (not including $270
million in DOE subsidies). According to Mr. Friedmann, neither that plant nor any
other of the CCS demonstration projects would have been built without
government subsidies. The commercial viability of CCS would not exist without
artificial government support, and even with billions in subsidies it is still in doubt.
The takeaway from all this is that the DOE has spent billions of dollars to
develop a technology that even if successful, will cost taxpayers billions MORE
in subsidies.
The Corruption of Clean Coal
Coal companies are polluting our democracy. 18 Coal utilities and mining
companies spend millions of dollars on campaign contributions, fielding an army
of lobbyists to roll back public health safeguards on coal pollution. Duke Energy
alone has given $3 million since 1999. Regulators in North Carolina consulted
Duke Energy last year before seeking to exclude citizen activists from talks to
settle charges that the utility’s coal ash ponds had polluted the state’s
groundwater. 19
According to the Washington Examiner (July 18, 2012), President Obama’s
campaign team was “going on the offensive to promote his support for clean coal.”
but “clean coal” is nothing more than a made up marketing phrase that author Jeff
Goodell best described: “Clean coal” is not an actual invention, a physical thing
18
19
Kevin Grandia http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/19/546871/ten-reasons-clean-coal-is-offensive/
“Emails Link Duke Energy and North Carolina” New York Times, Mar 14, 2014
29
— it is an advertising slogan, like “fat-free donuts” or “interest-free loans.” It is
PR spin not based in reality and President Obama and his campaign team are
playing a part in trying to dupe the public. Coal is far from clean and no amount of
spin is going to change that.
In an interview with ABC News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, “The coal industry
and fossil fuel industries in general are the largest contributors to the political
process. 20 So you have politicians who have essentially become indentured
servants of these industries, and have adopted the talking points of these industries.
And that's really not in the best interest of the American public, but it's one of the
sad fallouts of having a lackadaisical campaign finance system in this country,
which ultimately compromises American democracy. You don't have politicians
representing the American public, but rather the people who finance their
campaigns, and that's the coal industry and the oil industry, who are the primary
funders. I think it's sad when political leaders feel that they are so indebted to
these industries, and so fearful of them, that they have to essentially endorse
conditions that clearly are wrong…it's a sad testament to the impact of campaign
contributions in our system and the political clout of this industry that you have
very sensible politicians, including great men like Barack Obama, who feel the
need to parrot the talking points of an industry that is so destructive to our country
in general, and to the communities of Appalachia in particular…”
Clean Coal Desecrates Creation
Instead of traditional mining, many coal companies in Appalachia now use
mountaintop removal to extract coal. 21 Coal companies are increasingly using this
method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal seams while
reducing the number of workers required to a fraction of what conventional
methods require. Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood
forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop,
and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams.
Surface mining destroys the natural beauty of the landscape. The wooded peaks of
mountains become flat sterile mesas. A clear babbling brook, splashing over rocks
through a cool valley, beneath green overhanging branches, becomes a black ooze
20
21
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7400698&page=1
Op Cit Grandia
30
leaking out of a gargantuan random fill of stumps, mud, brush, dirt and garbage.
The fertile farmland is ruined by gigantic and systematic piles of waste material.
Birdsong, a gentle breeze, and blessed silence have become dust, vibration, and
diesel exhaust odors. All of the native communities are decimated: human and
woodland; valley, forest and mountain – they’ve all been ruined. The children are
confused, young people leave or turn to drugs and alcohol. The old people are sad.
Coal-fired power plants using coal rich in limestone, produce calcium oxide which
readily dissolves in water to form calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)2 which is carried by
rain water to rivers from ash dump areas. 22 Ca(OH)2 precipitates Ca and Mg ions,
converting the river water to soft water. Soft water irrigation converts the fertile
soil into alkaline soil which will not grow crops. The problem is acute when many
coal-fired boilers and power stations are installed in a river basin. The problem is
further aggravated in intensively cultivated river basins located in China, India,
Egypt, Pakistan, west Asia, Australia, and western U.S. due to accumulation of
salts in the remaining water after evaporation losses.
Mine collapses (or mine subsidences) have the potential to produce major effects
above ground, which are especially devastating in developed areas. For example,
German underground coal-mining has damaged thousands of houses, and the coalmining industries have set aside large sums in funding for future subsidence
damages as part of their insurance and state-subsidy schemes. In a particularly
spectacular case in the German Saar region (a historical coal-mining area), a
suspected mine collapse in 2008 created an earthquake measuring 4.0 on the
Richter scale, causing damage to houses. Previously, smaller earthquakes had
become increasingly common and coal mining was temporarily suspended in the
area. According to media reports from China, one-seventh of the land in the northcentral province of Shanxi has subsided, due to underground mining tunnels. 23
Four million hectares (nearly 10 million acres) of land have been lost to mining
activities in China. About 1,900 villages and over 1 million people have been
negatively impacted by geological disasters caused by coal mining.
22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_coal_industry
Shailesh Palekar “Asia Likely to Remain Dependent on Coal” UPI Asia Online Nov 30, 2007
http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Economics/2007/11/30/analysis_asia_likely_to_remain_dependent_on_coal/2299/
23
31
Clean Coal Crushes Lives
In New York State, prevailing winds bring mercury from the coal-fired power
plants of the Midwest, contaminating the local water. 24 The mercury is consumed
by worms, which are eaten by fish, which are eaten by birds. As of 2008, mercury
levels in bald eagles in New York had reached record heights.
Coal-fired plants produce about 50% of the mercury emissions in the US.
These emissions are concentrated as they work their way up the food chain; and
they are converted into methyl mercury, a toxic compound which harms wildlife
and people who eat fish. Coal burning is a key source of methyl mercury in the
environment.
Mercury in mothers’ blood and breast milk can interfere with the
development of babies’ brains and neurological systems and can lead to
learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, problems with coordination,
lowered IQ and even mental retardation.25 Nobody wants a coal plant in their
community because they don't want the autism rates to climb because of the
mercury contamination.26 They don't want to be getting sick. The University of
Texas just published a study showing that children who live in the plume
downwind of a coal burning power plant have much greater special education
needs in their schools, because of the damage it's doing… In addition,
communities near mountaintop coal mines have inordinately high rates of
birth defects. These health disorders not only cause tremendous grief and sorrow,
but they are extremely expensive as well.
According to a report in the journal Science Daily, people who live in coal mining
communities have a 70 percent increased risk of developing kidney disease, a 64
percent increased risk of developing chronic pulmonary obstructive disease, and
are 30 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure than those who do not
live in coal-mining communities. 27 The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention describes “an epidemic” of respiratory diseases among coal miners, due
to regular inhalation of deadly toxins and particle matter. Chronic lung diseases,
such as black lung are common in miners, leading to reduced life expectancy, with
4,000 new cases of black lung every year in the US (4 percent of workers
annually) and 10,000 new cases every year in China.
24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_the_coal_industry
Op Cit Kevin Grandia
26 Op Cit http://abcnews
27 http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/06/06/why-mining-and-burning-coal-could-slowly-be-killing-us/
25
32
Clean Coal Kills
Coal mining has always been very dangerous. There have been scores of coal
mining disasters over the years. Underground mining deaths due to suffocation, gas
poisoning, roof collapse, and gas explosions are common. Even in surface mining
there are mine wall failures and vehicle collisions. In the US alone, more than
100,000 coal miners have been killed in accidents over the past century, with
more than 3,200 dying in 1907 alone. 28 As recently as 2010, mine disasters like
Upper Big Branch in West Virginia and Pike River in New Zealand took a total of
58 miner’s lives - grim reminders of how coal companies still put profits over the
health and safety of miners. And the Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates
that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.
Throughout the world, thousands of miners continue to die annually, either through
direct accidents in coal mines or through adverse health consequences from
working under poor conditions. China has the highest number of coal mining
deaths in the world, with 6,027 deaths in 2004 alone.29
In 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO) and other organizations calculated
that coal particulate pollution causes about one million deaths annually across
the planet - approximately one third of all early deaths related to all air pollution
sources.
In another report conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund, researchers
estimated as many as 10,000 deaths were associated with coal-fired plants in the
U.S. 30 These deaths were due to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases caused by
coal pollution. Also, the Environmental Protection Agency says that as many as
36,000 Americans die prematurely each year because of pollution from coalfired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital
admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant
pollution.
Former Miner Explains Culture Of Mining." NPR: National Public Radio. April 7, 2010 .
Op Cit http://en.wikipedia.org
30 Op Cit http://www.foxnews
28
29
33
Clean Coal Recap
Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) will be able to capture 65 to 90 percent
of the CO2 emitted from a coal-fired power plant. But replacing all sources of US
energy with CCS Coal would cost $16.5 trillion. And after all that money has been
spent, AGW would still be getting worse because large amounts of CO2
greenhouse gas (10% to 35%) would still be going into the atmosphere. But the
huge cost of CCS and the (still escaping CO2) are only part of the problem with
coal:
1. Coal mining rips the tops off mountains in Appalachia, and dumps the
rubble into the nearest valley, destroying the surrounding natural beauty, the
water supplies and the local ecosystems. Coal mine subsidences (large-scale
cave-ins) have wrecked streets and buildings and ruined property values
over millions of acres all over the planet. Coal sludge from washing “clean
coal” pollutes more water supplies, floods the countryside, and ruins rivers.
Calcium Oxide from coal ash dumps ultimately converts river water to soft
water. When that soft water is used for irrigation, millions of acres of
farmland is ruined.
2. Mercury from coal mining makes children retarded. Mountaintop coal
mining causes birth defects. People near coal mines are far more likely to
develop high blood pressure, kidney disease, and black lung.
3. Black Lung disease from coal mining has killed tens of thousands; coal
mining accidents have killed hundreds of thousands; and coal particulates
have killed millions.
4. If the external costs of coal (in destroyed water supplies, farms, health care,
untimely deaths, special education, etc) were added onto the price of
electricity from coal-fired power plants, the cost of the electricity would
double.
5. The Coal lobbyists in Washington DC, and in State Governments, continue
to “obtain” support from legislative and executive branches of government
to continue their coal industry operations, while the staggering external costs
continue to be absorbed by others or left unpaid.
34
Chapter 4: Methane Madness
CO2 Greenhouse Gas Times 80!
Natural gas is mostly methane, which is represented as CH4 (the “C” stands for a
carbon atom and the H4 stand for four hydrogen atoms). Methane (CH4) is a
greenhouse gas. When CH4 burns it produces carbon dioxide CO2 and water H2O
which are both greenhouse gases.
When CH4 burns it combines with oxygen, represented as O2. Two oxygen (O2 )
molecules are represented on the left in the picture below by the two pairs of two
red balls connected with little curved springs. Methane (CH4 ) is represented by the
little black ball (C) connected with sticks to four yellow balls (H4 ).
2 O2 molecules + 1 CH4 molecule produce 2 H2 O molecules + 1 CO2 and a very
small amount of heat. The two water molecules are each represented by a red ball
(O) connected with sticks to two yellow balls (H2 ). The CO2 molecule is the black
ball with red balls attached on opposite sides with little pairs of springs.
We have certain odd words for specific numbers of things. “Dozen” means 12.
“Billion” means 1,000,000,000 (or 1 x 109). “Googol” means 1 x 10100 and “Mole”
(also called Avogadro’s number) means 6.02 x 1023.
If, instead of burning just one molecule of CH4, we burn a whole “Mole” (6.02 x
1023) of CH4 molecules, we will get a much larger amount of heat, the “Molar Heat
of Combustion” which is 891 kJ or 213 Calories (same as diet Calories).
35
Coal is mostly carbon. Carbon is represented by the little black ball in the picture
below. When the coal burns it combines with oxygen.
1 Carbon Atom + 1 Oxygen Molecule produces 1 Carbon Dioxide Molecule and a
very small amount of heat.
If, instead of burning just one atom of carbon, we burn a “Mole” (6.02 x 10 23 ) of
carbon atoms, we get a “Molar Heat of Combustion” of 393.7 kJ or 94.1 Calories.
So if we burn 1 “mole” of coal we put 1 “mole” of CO2 into the atmosphere, and if
we burn 1 “mole” of methane we ALSO put 1 “mole of CO2 into the atmosphere.
But the “mole” of methane gives us 213 Calories of energy, and the “mole of
coal only gives us 94.1 Calories of energy. Compared to coal, we get way more
than twice the energy from methane per “mole” of CO2 released into the
atmosphere! To put it another way, a methane plant only puts out about 44% as
much CO2 as a traditional coal plant producing the same amount of energy.
A new 620 million watt methane plant is estimated to cost about $569 million
dollars.31 (It only works to capacity 95% of the time, so multiply that 620 million
watt design capacity by 0.95, obtaining 589 million watts as an average output.)
From ALL sources — petrol, methane, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro — the
United States uses an average of 3 TRILLION watt-hours of energy per hour. (US
EIA estimates US will use total of 25897 Twh/y from ALL sources in 2014.
25897/(365x24) = 3 Tw/hr)
Let’s calculate the cost of installing enough new methane power plants to generate
our hourly national 3 trillion watts. We divide 3 trillion watts by 589 million watts
average output, then multiple the result by $569 million per power plant:
31
Op Cit US Energy Information Administration (EIA)
36
3,000,000,000,000 watts x $569,000,000/plant = $2,900,000,000,000
589,000,000 watts/plant
Cost to replace US energy sources with methane is 2.9 TRILLION dollars.
However, it is also possible to use CCS (carbon capture and storage) with methane,
which will remove another 65% to 90% of the CO2 so that methane CCS produces
only 4% to 15% as much CO2 as a traditional coal plant.
A new 340 million watt methane CCS plant is estimated to cost about $712 million
dollars.32 (But it only works to capacity 95% of the time, so we multiply that 340
million watt design capacity by 0.95, obtaining 323 million watts as an average
output.)
Let’s calculate the cost of installing enough new methane CCS power plants to
generate our hourly national 3 trillion watts. We divide 3 trillion watts by 323
million watts average output, then multiple the result by $712 million per power
plant:
3,000,000,000,000 watts x $712,000,000/plant = $6,600,000,000,000
323,000,000 watts/plant
Cost to replace US energy sources with methane CCS is $6.6 TRILLION!
The reduced CO2 emissions and low costs are significant arguments in favor of
methane and methane CCS that we should not disregard. Nevertheless, it may still
be wrong to build methane or methane CCS plants.
Methane is Making AGW Worse
Earlier, we mentioned that methane is a greenhouse gas. This would not be a
problem if methane would stay out of the atmosphere. Unfortunately, atmospheric
methane, like CO2, is on the rise. Methane parts per million increased rapidly from
1985 through 2000. 33 The increase stopped, and the graph flattened out for about
eight years to 2008; and then it started to rise again, and it is still rising.
32
Op Cit
See graph on next page. Source: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/methane-burned-vs-methane-leakedfrackings-impact-on-climate-change/?comments=1
33
37
In February 2014, a research group proposed that decreasing natural gas emissions
from human activities was one contributor to the leveling off from the 1980s to the
2000s. But they believe that the uptick starting 2007 could be partly related to
the shale gas (fracking) boom. 34
Isobel Simpson, a member of that group, has also studied this question from a
slightly different angle. She looked at ethane, which often accompanies the
emission of methane, but only lasts about two months in the atmosphere, making it
easier to spot short-term changes. She and her colleagues argue that ethane's longterm declining rate was mostly caused by declining fugitive fossil fuel sources
such as venting and flaring. (Flaring is the burning of unwanted natural gas and
ethane, but some of it usually escapes unburned.) “In addition,” Simpson said, “the
former Soviet Union tightened their pipelines (reduced leakage) in the early 1990s,
which we believe contributed to the declining growth of both ethane and methane
which started around 1992.”
34
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/methane-burned-vs-methane-leaked-frackings-impact-on-climate-change/
38
In 2011, Robert Howarth, Renee Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea concluded that
shale gas (methane) has a larger greenhouse footprint than coal.35 They
estimated that 3.6 to 7.9 percent of shale gas methane escapes to the atmosphere
before it reaches a power plant or a furnace. A good portion of that leakage
comes from the fracking process, making shale gas methane considerably worse
than traditional natural gas methane production. In order to compare methane with
coal, Howarth’s group calculated the greenhouse impact per unit of energy
released by burning natural gas and coal. They found that shale gas (methane)
could be twice as bad as coal over a 20-year period.
In 2012, the EPA estimated that natural gas operations emitted about 145
million metric tons of methane in 2011, making it the biggest source of these
emissions in the country.36
A September 2013 study, sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
and nine energy petroleum companies, found that emissions may be lower than
previously thought, at least during part of the extraction process. According to the
study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the
average methane emissions from the well completion flow backs at 190 natural gas
sites ranged from 0.01 metric tons to 17 metric tons. The EPA's estimate worked
out to 81 metric tons per site. The study also found that leaks in other parts of the
process — pneumatic pumps, controllers and other equipment — was either equal
to or higher than the EPA previously estimated, which meant that total emissions
were still pretty close to the EPA's 2012 estimates above.
A study released November 25, 2013 found that methane emissions from the
production of shale gas may be higher than previously thought. The study was
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and questions
the idea that natural gas produces half as much greenhouse gas pollution as coal.
Natural gas has been embraced by President Obama as the centerpiece of
America’s climate change plan. Methane is released from natural gas wells during
drilling. Scientists have had difficulty measuring these emissions precisely, but the
latest report, published by a group of 15 scientists, found that the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency significantly underestimated the amount of
methane released during natural gas production. They conclude that the methane
emissions could be 50% higher than EPA estimates. 37
35
Op Cit
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/stories/how-much-methane-leaks-out-during-fracking
37 http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/New-Study-Finds-Higher-Methane-Emissions-from-Fracking.htm
36
39
Methane Recap
It is true that we get more than twice as much energy from methane per mole of
CO2 released, when compared to coal. It is also true that methane power plants are
cheaper to build than any other energy source. But these two advantages are lost
when escaped methane gas is considered.
Natural gas is mostly methane. As a greenhouse gas, methane is 20 to 80 times
more potent than CO2.38 3.6 to 7.9 percent of fracked methane escapes to the
atmosphere before it is used: more than 145 million tons of methane is released by
natural gas operations, making it twice as bad as the CO2 released from
burning coal.
38
http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html
40
Chapter 5: Green Energy
Costly and Immature
Most people think of wind, solar, and biofuel as “Green” sources of energy, but if
we carefully define what we mean by “Green” and then look critically at the
efficiencies of wind, solar, and biofuel, we may come to believe that they do not
enhance the environment, they are not all self-sustaining, and they are not very
efficient, Some might even start saying that the term “Green” describing the use of
these three energy sources refers to their expense and/or their immaturity.
Wind
Wind turbines do not work when the wind doesn’t blow. They do not usually
operate at their design capacity until the winds are greater than 30 mph, and when
the winds reach speeds somewhere between 60 and 160 mph, a turbine will shut
down to keep it from flying apart. Capacity Factor is the percentage of time that
a turbine actually works at design capacity. Like the wind speed, it varies a lot
from place to place. Here are the 2008 average Capacity Factors 39 for wind
turbines in a few selected countries:
Germany
United States
China
India
UK
France
World Average
19.3%
23.5%
12.0%
17.6%
30.4%
18.8%
18.6%
When a country is calculating the number of wind turbines required to reach a
particular generating capacity, the Capacity Factor must be taken into
consideration.
39
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_by_country
41
From ALL sources — petrol, methane, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro — the
US uses an average of 3 TRILLION watt-hrs of energy per hour. (US EIA
estimates US will use total of 25897 Twh/y in 2014: 25897/(365x24) = 3 Tw/hr)
A 100 million watt wind farm costs about $221 million dollars installed.40 (But
it only works to capacity 23.5% of the time, so we must multiply the 100 million
watt design capacity by 0.235, obtaining 23,500,000 watts average output.)
Let’s calculate the cost of installing enough wind farms to generate our hourly
national 3 trillion watts. We divide the 3 trillion watts by the 23,500,000 watts
average output, then multiple the result by $221 million per wind farm:
3,000,000,000,000 watts x $221,000,000/farm = $28,200,000,000,000
23,500,000 watts/farm
Cost to replace US energy sources with wind is about 28 TRILLION dollars,
and that does not include the new power lines that would have to connect the new
wind farms to the grid. For comparison purposes, it should be noted that the cost
for a similar replacement with natural gas plants with carbon capture and
sequestration (CCS) would be about $6.6 Trillion — less than one-fourth as much!
And, while natural gas CCS does release some CO2, it is only about 4% to 15% as
much CO2 as a coal-fired plant of comparable size. Also keep in mind that the total
thirteen year cost of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan since 2001 was $4 Trillion.
Consider what that “tiny” little $4 Trillion did to the economy, and ask yourself
how likely it is that we will ever spend $28 Trillion on wind!
Solar
Like the wind, available sunlight varies a lot throughout the day, and it varies a lot
from place to place. At night, there is NO available sunlight. On cloudy days, the
available sunlight is only about 30% of its clear sky value. The sun must pass
through more miles of atmosphere when it arrives at an angle less than 90 o to
Earth’s surface, and the available sunlight is therefore reduced accordingly. Solar
collector panels work best when the sun’s rays arrive at a 90o angle to their surface;
and solar trackers are available that can keep the panel at exactly 90 o to the arriving
40
Op Cit US Energy Information Administration (EIA)
42
sun’s rays, when the sun is available. Unfortunately, the cost of a solar tracker is
substantially more than the cost of the solar collector panels, so most people do not
use them in their homes. Instead they typically install their solar collectors so they
are 90o to the sun at noon on the equinox (Mar 20 and September 22); and settle for
a less than optimum angle the rest of the time.
As was the case with the wind, Capacity Factor is a ratio indicating the
percentage of time that a solar collector panel works at its design capacity. In
cloudy climates such as Western Washington, Massachusetts, and Germany the
solar Capacity Factor is typically around 10% without a solar tracker. In sunny
climates such as Arizona or Spain the Capacity Factor is around 20%. If one is
lucky enough to live in a sunny climate and one is rich enough to afford a solar
tracker, it is possible to achieve a Capacity Factor as high as 30%. For the
following estimate – which includes a solar tracker- we’ll assume a more realistic
Capacity Factor of 27%.
A 150 megawatt PV (photovoltaic) solar facility costs about $608 million
dollars installed.41 (But the Capacity Factor is 27% so we must multiply the 150
megawatt design capacity by 0.27, obtaining 40.5 megawatts average output.)
Let’s calculate the cost of installing enough solar collector facilities to generate our
hourly national 3 trillion watts. We divide the 3 trillion watts by the 40.5
megawatts average output, then multiple the result by $608 million per PV solar
facility:
3,000,000,000,000 watts x $608,000,000/facility = $45,000,000,000,000
40,500,000 watts/facility
Cost to replace US energy sources with solar is about 45 TRILLION dollars.
This does not include battery backup for night time. (The total national cost of
Medicare and Social Security for 2012 was “only” $1.36 Trillion, yet many believe
even that small amount is excessive. Further, replacing US energy sources with
CCS coal fired plants would cost “only” $16.5 Trillion— about 37% as much as
solar. (The CCS system will remove and sequester up to 90% of the CO2
emissions.) Replacing US energy sources with CCS coal fired plants would be
unaffordable even in the best of times; but replacing US energy sources with solar
would be far, far worse! Better and more economical alternatives must be found.
41
Op Cit
43
Batteries and other Back-ups
Estimated fossil fuel replacement cost with wind is $28.2 TRILLION. Estimated
fossil fuel replacement cost with solar is $45 TRILLION. But no matter which one
you choose –wind or solar- there is one other problem that must be confronted: the
wind does not blow constantly and the sun does not shine 24/7. Whether you
choose wind or solar, you must have some sort of back-up system in place.
Your back-up system must reliably provide energy until the wind starts to blow
again or sun decides to shine once more.
It has been suggested that $10,000 in batteries are needed for each 5000 watts of
collector power. 42 If $10,000 is needed for 5000 watts, how many dollars are
needed for our national 3 trillion watts? (Here, we don’t need to back up our
redundant collector energy; we only need to back up our national 3 trillion watts.)
(3 trillion watts/5000 watts) x $10,000 = $6 trillion
1) Nation-wide battery back-up for wind or solar would be about $6 trillion,
but other types of back-up systems are available: 2) Extra energy at slack use times
can be used to pump water UPHILL to be stored in lakes behind dams. Then,
when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, the stored water can spin
turbines which will spin generators. 3) Extra energy can be used to compress air in
big steel tanks. Then, when needed, the compressed air can spin turbines which
will spin generators. 4) Using long-distance, high voltage power lines, extra
energy can be shared with remote locations that happen to need energy. Then,
when there is a local need, other remote locations with extra energy can give the
energy back over long-distance, high voltage power lines.
Alternative 2) requires 3 trillion watts in water pumps, water turbines, and
generators; plus many dams and lakes. It would cost as much per watt as CCS coal
– definitely not a good alternative. Grand Coulee Dam puts out 2.3 billion watts of
power. It would cost $5 billion today:
(3 trillion watts/2.3 billion watts) x $5 billion = $6.5 trillion
42
http://www.greentechmedia.com/
44
National stored water back-up for wind or solar would be about $6.5 trillion.
However, the cost is irrelevant: such a system would be impossible in the US: we
are in the business of tearing DOWN dams —NOT building them!. 43
Alternative 3) requires 3 trillion watts in air compressors, air turbines, and
generators; plus many large steel tanks. For solar, alternative 4) would require
long-distance, high voltage power lines that connect the night side of the planet
with the day side of the planet. Since traditional power lines suffer significant
energy losses on a per-mile basis, super-conducting cable would be required.
Estimated cost for compressed air or planet-spanning, super-conducting power
lines is left as an exercise for the reader 
Biofuels
Mother Nature Network defines Green Energy this way:
Green energy is an umbrella term used to describe any sort of alternative
energy that is produced with less negative impact on the environment than
‘non-green’ energy sources such as fossil fuels. Solar, wind and hydro
energy are commonly cited examples of green energy sources. 44
Green Choices website defines Biofuels as energy sources made from living
things, or the waste that living things produce. 45 The “living things” in the
definition are usually green plants or algae. Advocates say Biofuels are Green
Energy because green plants REMOVE carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and
help to reverse the greenhouse effect! These biofuel advocates will admit that –
yes- biofuels put carbon dioxide BACK INTO the atmosphere when they are
burned, but that’s okay, because this particular CO2 will AGAIN BE REMOVED
from the atmosphere, when more green plants are grown to make more biofuel.
They say that the use of biofuels is considered to be “Green” because biofuels
put no additional CO2 into the atmosphere. Instead, the biofuel CO2 just gets
cycled “round and round” from atmosphere to plants to fuel to atmosphere, and
back to plants again.
The above idea of the CO2 cycling “round and round” is a wonderful concept that
the biofuel advocates and politicians fervently WANT you to believe – and many
43
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/opinion/tear-down-deadbeat-dams.html?_r=0
http://www.mnn.com/eco-glossary/green-energyBiofuels
45 http://www.greenchoices.cornell.edu/energy/biofuels.
44
45
of them passionately believe it themselves. (In one case, so passionately that a
biofuel researcher pushed me in the chest and yelled at me when I had the temerity
to disagree with him at a public meeting.)
It is most likely true that some biofuels under development will realize this ideal
concept someday; but it is also true that the biofuels in use today –ethanol and
biodiesel- most definitely do NOT even come CLOSE to achieving this ideal.
Some future biofuels promise to be quite good and above reproach, and some
biofuels in use today are deeply, monstrously evil. There are promising biofuels
that will add no net CO2 to the atmosphere, that will not take over arable land
needed for food production, and that are fully capable of replacing gasoline and
diesel in every way. Yet there are other Biofuels adding net CO2 to the atmosphere.
They are no better than the fossil fuels they replace and they are ALREADY
taking over arable land needed for food production. They are not nearly as
efficient as gasoline or diesel, and in some cases actually damage the vehicles
that try to use them.
A study released November 29, 2011 by economists at Oregon State University
says biofuels would barely reduce fossil fuel use and would likely increase
greenhouse gas emissions.46 The idea that biofuels can reduce dependency on
fossil fuels and mitigate climate change has led governments to promote them as
substitutes for gasoline and petroleum-based diesel, using mandates and subsidies,
said Bill Jaeger, lead author on the study and professor in the agricultural and
resource economics department at OSU. "Our results suggest that existing biofuel
policies have been very costly, produce negligible reductions in fossil fuel use
and increase, rather than decrease, greenhouse gas emissions."
Jaeger said biofuels are produced and transported using fossil fuels. Nitrogen
fertilizer, which is made using natural gas, is used to grow corn for ethanol.
Also, growing plants for biofuels pushes food production onto previously
unfarmed land, according to well-documented research. When this new
acreage is cleared and tilled, it releases carbon that has accumulated over long
periods in soil and vegetation, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions. (For
such a change in land use, 50 to 100 years are often required for biofuel crops to
“pay for” the CO2 that is lost to the atmosphere.) The costs of these side effects
tend to be overlooked by federal policies.
46
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111129123255.htm
46
The researchers focused on currently used biofuels worldwide: corn ethanol,
soybean biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol, canola biodiesel, and sugarcane ethanol.
They evaluated them in terms of their contribution to reducing fossil fuel use and
greenhouse gas emissions. The study did not take into account the effect that
increased production of biofuels might have on water use, pollution and food
prices, all of which raise additional concerns about the merits of promoting
biofuels, according to Jaeger.
Another big problem caused by corn ethanol production is the increase in nitrogen
fertilizer being used. “Between 2005 and 2010, corn farmers increased their use of
nitrogen fertilizer by more than one billion pounds,” reported the AP. 47 “More
recent data isn’t available from the Agriculture Department, but because of the
huge increase in corn planting, even conservative projections by the AP suggest
another billion-pound fertilizer increase on corn farms since then.” With all this
fertilizer being dumped in a relatively small portion of the country, its effects are
particularly worrisome. Nitrogen in drinking water is toxic to humans. Iowa's Des
Moines Water Works faced such high levels of nitrates in its water sources this
summer that it had to keep huge machines running constantly to clean the water,
and it asked customers to reduce their water consumption. Minnesota’s water
system is also finding itself “overwhelmed by the increase in production pressure
to plant more crops,” said Steve Morse, executive director of the Minnesota
Environmental Partnership.
The fertilizer runoff has deleterious effects downstream, too, wrote the AP:
The nitrates travel down rivers and into the Gulf of Mexico, where they boost the
growth of enormous algae fields. When the algae die, the decomposition consumes
oxygen, leaving behind a dead zone where aquatic life cannot survive. This year,
the dead zone covered 5,800 square miles of sea floor, about the size of
Connecticut. Larry McKinney, the executive director of the Harte Institute at
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, says corn ethanol production worsened the
dead zone. “On the one hand, the government is mandating ethanol use,” he said,
“and it is unfortunately coming at the expense of the Gulf of Mexico.” The dead
zone is one example among many of a peculiar ethanol side effect: as one
government program encourages farmers to plant more corn, and other programs
pay millions to clean up the mess.
So why don’t we end government support for corn ethanol? “Obama
administration officials know the ethanol mandate hasn’t lived up to its billing,”
47
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/16932-federal-ethanol-policy-bad-for-the-planet-good-forlobbyists
47
observed the AP. But “the ethanol policy,” like so many other government
programs, “cruises on autopilot.” Revisiting the policy would require an admission
that the government’s central planners were wrong, something politicians —
perhaps especially Obama — do not want to do. (The administration even ordered
one Agriculture Department official who expressed his doubts about the ethanol
program to be quiet.) The administration seems to be happy with good, oldfashioned political payoffs. The ethanol mandate may do nothing to stop “global
warming” — in fact, it may actually increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere — and it may be working at cross-purposes with other programs that
have at least some environmental benefit. But it’s good for certain industries with
powerful lobbies. “We are committed to this industry because we understand
its benefits,” Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack told ethanol lobbyists recently.
“We understand it’s about farm income. It’s about stabilizing and
maintaining farm income which is at record levels.”
Green Energy Recap
Wind and solar energy have NO carbon footprint, but the wind doesn’t blow all the
time, and the sun doesn’t shine all the time. Back-up sources must be available for
the times when wind or solar power are not available. The need for back-up makes
wind and solar prohibitively expensive.
Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are made from plants. Biofuels release CO 2
when they are burned, but that CO2 is recaptured by the next crop of plants, so
theoretically there is NO net release of CO2.
But the harsh reality is this: the farm equipment used to plant, cultivate, and
harvest the plants burns fossil fuels. The nitrogen fertilizer used to fertilize the
crops is made from fossil fuels. The heaters used to dry the corn use fossil fuels.
The trucks used to haul the seed and fertilizer and crops and alcohol and biodiesel
all use fossil fuel. When all the carbon dioxide released from all the fossil fuels
consumed is added up, it turns out that the total is roughly the same as it would
have been if those fossil fuels were just used in place of biofuels in the first place.
The total fossil fuel CO2 permanently released to the atmosphere in the process of
making biofuels is no better than the CO2 that would have been released by just
using fossil fuels in the first place. Thus, at this time there is NO advantage to
using biofuels.
48
In fact, using biofuels is much WORSE, because:
1. The biofuel plants sometimes use land that would otherwise be used to grow
food crops, driving up the price of food.
2. Farmers sometimes clear land to grow the biofuel plants. When land use is
changed in this way, vast quantities of CO2 are released to the atmosphere,
exceeding any theoretical advantage of biofuels by a factor of many tens,
sometimes hundreds.
3. The excess fertilizer used to grow biofuel plants is enlarging the dead zone
in the Gulf of Mexico, which would otherwise be a rich fishing area.
4. Millions of dollars of taxpayer money is wasted on government subsidies to
encourage the production of biofuels.
Rather than encouraging Biofuels for the now-obsolete internal combustion autos
and trucks, it would seem wiser to focus on infrastructure supporting the use of
electric surface vehicles. (However, Biofuels may ultimately prove to be necessary
for the aircraft and maritime trade industries.)
49
50
Chapter 6: Energy
A Decidedly Depraved Department
The US Department of Energy seems to be moving on many fronts to address
AGW; and they are undoubtedly spending a great deal of money in the process.
The Energy Department encourages and funds clean coal CCS development and
the use of natural gas (methane); but the use of CCS and methane will continue to
add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and will not slow AGW in time to avoid
catastrophe. The Energy Department encourages and funds wind energy and solar
power, yet wind or solar –either one- is completely unaffordable. The Department
encourages and funds biofuels in a blatant attempt to appease the farm lobby, yet
biofuels make AGW worse. And they have spent tens of billions on D-T fusion another endeavor that cannot solve AGW in time. Yet the US Department of
Energy seems to be ignoring the one option that promises the reliability of coal or
methane without their accompanying greenhouse gas emissions – the one option
that can promise the zero carbon footprint of wind and solar without their
accompanying high cost and erratic hours of operation – the one option that, with
an all-out “NASA Apollo” style effort, could be ready for full-scale, assembly line,
commercial production in eight years.
The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 gave the Energy Department
responsibility for promotion of nuclear power. 48 The mission of the NNSA within
the Energy Department 49 is “To provide the United States Navy with Nuclear
Propulsion Plants.” The Energy Department’s own website50 states that their
mission is “to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy,
environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and
technology solutions.” Yet the Energy Department supports research and
development of exactly ONE (1) nuclear fusion reaction: D-T fusion which
requires hugely expensive radioactive fuel, which generates dangerous neutrons,
which produces radioactive waste; and which shows zero promise of commercial
viability at any time in the next twenty or thirty years.
48
http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/governing-laws.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Nuclear_Security_Administration
50 http://energy.gov/mission
49
51
Go to the webpage for the Energy Department’s Fusion Energy Science Program,
and click on about.51 Scroll to Major Facilities. These four facilities will be listed
with pictures: ITER (Caderache France, a Tokamak), DIII-D (San Diego, a
Tokamak), NSTX (Princeton, a Tokamak), Alcator C-Mod (MIT, a Tokamak). All
of the major facilities they have listed for studying fusion are Tokamaks. An
ignorant person, visiting the US Department of Energy Fusion Energy webpage
might be led to believe that Tokamaks are the only approach to studying fusion.
The US Department of Energy Fusion Energy Science Program seems to be mostly
about Tokamaks, and that’s why they have to use the D-T reaction. The Tokamak
is incapable of pushing nuclei to the higher energies that are required to do more
advanced reactions. The Department of Energy does D-T fusion because it is
theoretically the easiest reaction. `
51
http://science.energy.gov/fes/about/
52
To understand why, take a look at the graph on the previous page. The red line
with the “DT” under its hump, is a graph of the probability for a D-T fusion
reaction. Of all the reactions shown in different colors, the D-T reaction is the
highest (most probable); and it also happens at the lowest kinetic energy (see
“kinetic energy required” axis below the graph).
Now look at the orange line with “p+B11” above its hump. The p-B11 aneutronic
reaction is much less probable (850 vs 1400 for DT) and requires much higher
energy (500 vs 40 for DT). Clearly, the p-B11 reaction is more difficult. But the
Polywell has already implemented a more difficult reaction. Look at the dark blue
line with a “DD” to its left. It has an even lower probability: about 250; and it
requires a much higher kinetic energy than DT – even higher than p+B11, if you
look at the peak. The Polywell implemented a DD reaction in November of
2005.52 It produced about one billion fusions per second, which was over
100,000 times better than all previous work at comparable voltages. Because
of power supply limitations, and problems with overheating of the coils, all testing
was short-pulsed. The coils were wound from plain varnish-insulated magnet wire,
with no cooling mechanism. The wire got very hot, very fast. Also, the
configuration of coils on any Polywell produces mutual repulsion, so the coils
press against their containers trying to get away from each other. The individual
windings also tend to mutually repel. Both of the previous magnet-wire machines
had reached end-of-life due to coil blowouts. This one was hammered even harder,
and it burned out as well.
But at the same time, at the moment of their greatest success, their budget was
cut. Polywell inventor, Dr. Robert Bussard explains, “The reason our funding died
–is not because the Navy did anything– but rather because of the Iraq war. The
Iraq war budgets had been consuming everything in sight in Washington and when
it came time for the budget process for fiscal 2006, the total Navy R&D budget
was cut by twenty-six percent across the board. One of the cuts was the Navy
Energy Program. We were a victim of that. We were a little pimple, down in the
noise of the thing, but we died along with it. We had some friends in the Office of
Naval Research that kept us alive for 9 months and that was it. We had a plan
where we had to close down by the first of November 2005 and start getting rid of
all the equipment since there wasn’t any way to carry it past the end of the calendar
year…but we were approaching November first and we hadn’t tested fusion with
the new WB-6 yet. I said, ‘But we have to finish this,’ so we kept on working past
the shut-down date.” Nearly a year after shutting down the lab, Bussard presented
52
http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC%20Paper.pdf
53
his work in 2006 — for the first time in more than a decade — to the International
Astronautical Congress. In his paper, he stated, “Success (with the Polywell was)
proven by experiment in Oct/Nov 2005. …this allows demonstration of full-scale,
clean, nuclear fusion power systems, based on use of p + B11 → 3He4. This
demonstration will require about $200 M (USD) over 5 years, with an IEF
machine of 2.5-3 m in diameter, operated at over 100MW.” 53 He later discussed
his results with Google, the online search-engine company, in a talk titled, "Should
Google Go Nuclear?" that is widely available on the Internet. 54
Dr. Bussard did get another 1.8 million in Navy funds in August 2007, and he
managed to put together another crack team. But he passed away in October (he
had been dreadfully ill since shortly after the old lab closed). That was a really sad
time, but the new team (headed by Richard Nebel on leave from Los Alamos
National Laboratory) worked especially hard to see the dream thru. Speaking
about Robert Bussard, Richard Nebel said, "I've met and worked with a lot of
really smart people. Not many were real innovators, and that's what he was. He
would try to do things other people said you couldn't." Bussard's wife, Dolly Gray,
who co-founded the research firm EMC2 with him in 1985 and served as its
president and CEO, helped assemble the small team of scientists in Santa Fe.
Besides Nebel, 54, the group included Jaeyoung Park, a 37-year-old physicist who
is also on leave from LANL; Mike Wray, the physicist who ran the key 2005 tests,
and Wray's brother, Kevin, who was the computer guru for the operation. "If this
works, it's going to be a big deal. It could take the entire energy market," Nebel
said. Gray added, "And drag the oil companies into the 21st century".
Richard Nebel and the new Polywell team went on to build the WB-7 Polywell to
validate Robert Bussard's discoveries. The work was successfully peer-reviewed in
the fall of 2008; and Dr. Nebel made no secret of his belief that a full-scale 100
megawatt Polywell ($200 million for DD, adjusting for inflation) was the most
reasonable next step. Instead, on the basis of the WB-7 work, the Navy called for
bids on a new contract for a larger WB-8 Polywell to verify the R7 scaling
principle and the p-B11 reaction. EMC2 got the new contract as well. It was for
nearly $8 million dollars, but not nearly enough to build the full-scale version.
In November 2010, Richard Nebel stopped working for EMC2, and Jaeyoung Park
became manager of the project. Nebel was only 57 years old, and is still doing
research in Physics, working for Tibbar Technologies. It seems reasonable to ask
why Dr. Nebel is no longer with EMC2, and my best guess would be that when it
53
54
Robert W Bussard. “The Advent of Clean Nuclear Fusion…” International Astronautical Congress. 2006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhL5VO2NStU
54
became apparent that our present administration and the US Navy were not
inclined to build the full-scale Polywell, Dr. Nebel left in frustration.
As of August 15, 2012, the Navy had agreed to fund EMC2 with an additional $5.3
million over 2 years to work on the problem of pumping electrons into the
wiffleball. 55 They planned to integrate a pulsed power supply to support the
electron guns (100+amps, 10,000 V). WB-8 had already been operating at a
magnetic field strength of 0.8 Tesla. A review of the work recommended a
continuation and expansion of the effort, stating: "The experimental results to date
were consistent with the underlying theoretical framework of the Polywell fusion
concept and, in the opinion of the committee, merited continuation and expansion."
On June 4, 2014, Jaeyoung Park, Nicholas Krall and others published a paper 56
validating Robert Bussard’s Polywell Fusion concept and verifying wiffleball
formation. The experiment “represents critical progress toward…a compact
economical, power-producing nuclear fusion reactor.” The experimental results in
this paper suggest some truly amazing –even exhilarating- extrapolations: when a
one meter magrid (pg 8) radius is assumed, with a 7 Tesla magnetic field at the
cusp points, and beta = 1, the net output power is estimated to be 1.6 gigawatts!
This is HUGE! It is greater than the output of a full-sized conventional nuclear
fission reactor or a full-sized coal-fired power plant, and this would be from a
machine that would easily fit into the back of a dump truck! The urge to do the
math is hard to resist: from ALL sources — petrol, methane, coal, nuclear, wind, solar,
hydro — the U.S. uses an average of 3 TRILLION watt-hours of energy per hour. We
divide the 3 trillion watts by 1.6 gigawatts average output, then multiply the result by
$200 million per power plant:
(3,000,000,000,000 watts/1,600,000,000 watts/plant) x $200,000,000/plant
= $375,000,000,000
Based on the new research, the cost to replace US energy sources with Polywells
would be about $375 billion or 0.375 Trillion – FAR less than any other energy
source (see pg 10). But the contract between EMC2 and the Navy was allowed to
lapse nevertheless, and EMC2 is now seeking $30-$40 million from private
investors. What happened? Why wouldn’t the Navy continue to fund Polywell?
Outsiders like me can only guess, but it may be some combination of the following
four factors:
55
56
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.0133
55
1. The Navy has a ‘few’ other priorities in addition to fusion research, and
they didn’t have the $40 million to spend.
2. The Navy brass didn’t want to look stupid. If they continued to fund the
Polywell, and it didn’t work, there were politicians and other blowhards
who would say that the money was wasted. (And –it’s true- the thing
might not work! That’s why it’s called research! Physicists during
World War II didn’t know whether the weapons they built during the
Manhattan Project were going to work either: that’s why they tried TWO
different types of weapons! But back then, the brass had the guts to
spend the money anyway!)
3. The Navy project was always illegal (Remember? Navy Nuclear Power
is the responsibility of the Energy Department!). There is a possibility
that Navy was afraid the Department of Energy would whine to the
President, and he would shut the whole thing down. Years ago, a friend
of mine mentioned my Polywell website to an acquaintance who
happened to be a nuclear engineer, working for the Naval Staff Judge
Advocate (JAG) office at the Office of Naval Research. In less than 12
hours, my Polywell website had disappeared. When I called the people
who ran my web server to complain, they refused to discuss the matter,
and refunded my money without apology or explanation. Years later, on
an entirely different occasion, I had an EMC2 lobbyist call and ask me to
remove some pictures from my (rebuilt) Polywell website and otherwise
tone it down, because of the Navy’s wish to maintain a “low profile” (his
words).
4. Navy couldn't get the $40 million needed for proper project funding from
the Defense Department, because the Energy Department is required to
develop Navy Nuclear Propulsion. (This is a published policy. 57)
57
http://nnsa.energy.gov/ourmission (See “Powering the Nuclear Navy.” NNSA is part of the Energy Department.)
56
note: the information below is important, but if you can’t remember graphing exponential
functions and formula substitution, skip the box, and continue with the text below it.
So why did Bussard and Nebel want so very much to build the full scale version? Why is the full
scale Polywell such a big deal? The answer relates to the R7 scaling principle that we have
already mentioned. It turns out that the power output of the Polywell is proportional to the radius
of the Polywell to the seventh power. (R is considered to be the radius of a sphere that fits
tightly between the paired magnetic coils described on page 8.) So, for example, we could
assume that P = 1.6 R7 where P is the power out in gigawatts, 1.6 is the constant of
proportionality, and R is the radius of the Polywell. We graphed the function below, substituting
0, 0.5, and 1 for R.
If R is 0.5 meters, the Power output is 0.0125 billion watts; if R is 1.0 meters, the Power is 1.6
billion watts; but if R is 1.5 meters, the Power is 27.36 billion watts!
This means there is an optimum radius, and that is about 1.0 meter. If you make
the radius much less than 1.0 meter, the Polywell will not put out enough
power to charge itself, operate its electron and ion guns, and power its own
coils (it will not reach "break even"). And, if you make the radius much more
than 1.0 meter, the power output will exceed the strength of any known
materials, and the Polywell will blow itself to bits, every time you power it up.
This is the reason why it is such a big deal to adequately fund the Polywell:
because of the R7 scaling, anything less than $200 million or $300 million is not
57
enough for “proof of concept” – it’s not enough to prove that the machine can
power itself and still provide enough extra power to be useful.
Recap: US Department of Energy
The US Department of Energy is responsible for developing and providing Navy
nuclear propulsion, yet they ignored the Navy aneutronic fusion program. It could
have been argued that Energy was trying not to meddle in Navy affairs, except for
three details:
1. Navy had worked for years to maintain a low profile re. the Polywell
2. At two or three million dollars per year, the Polywell was clearly
underfunded:
a. In November 2006, Polywell inventor and lead researcher Robert
Bussard requested $200 million to fund a full-scale 100 megawatt
Polywell.
b. In Fall of 2008, lead Polywell researcher Richard Nebel stated that the
“next step” should be a full-scale 100 megawatt Polywell
c. In Spring of 2014, lead Polywell researcher Jaeyoung Park stated that
the “next step” should be giant electron and ion guns at a cost of $30
million, but the Navy allowed the contract to lapse, rather than
funding them.
d. Using R7 scaling -verified by Polywell research- it can be shown that
to reach “break-even” fusion, there is little point in constructing a
Polywell with a radius of less than 1.0 meters. A 1.0 m Polywell
prototype is going to cost at least $200 million; and if it is to be
aneutronic, more like $300 million.
3. Meanwhile, the Dept. of Energy is spending more than 25 times as much on
their magnetic and laser fusion programs: $3.9 billion for ITER, and $5
billion for NIF; and they have $75 million budgeted for the CCS Coal
program. CCS leaks more than 10% of CO2 to the atmosphere; coal
advocates have made it clear that the CCS conversions will never be
purchased without government subsidies, and President Obama has made it
clear that CCS will cause major rate increases; yet the Energy Department
ignores the Polywell.
58
Summary
Recent developments tend to support the theory of Anthropogenic Global
Warming (AGW). It may be a serious threat to the survival of civilization, and it
will certainly be an expensive problem for all of us over the next hundred years or
so. It is mostly caused by burning fossil fuels, and this must be severely curtailed.
Aneutronic fusion may prove to be the most reliable and the least expensive form
of energy that has the potential to completely replace all fossil fuels as energy
sources. Aneutronic fusion is safe, and its full implementation as a fossil fuel
replacement would be certain to reduce the effects of AGW.
Coal contributes 42% of the CO2 greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Proposed facilities to capture and sequester this CO2 will continue to allow the
escape of reduced amounts of greenhouse gas, which will continue to allow global
warming to get worse. Even if AGW were not a problem, coal would still need to
be replaced: its use, processing, and mining kill hundreds of people every year and
destroy the environment on a global scale.
If methane (natural gas) and coal are each allowed to burn at controlled rates so
they each release identical amounts of CO2, the methane will produce about twice
as much energy as the coal. Thus methane can make the same amount of energy as
coal, while releasing half as much CO2, but “half as much” is not good enough.
The release of even half as much CO2 gas will still cause AGW to get worse.
Also, methane itself is a greenhouse gas. The fracked shale gas wells leak methane,
the natural gas storage leaks methane, gas lines leak methane, and the end-user
facilities leak methane. The methane is lost to the atmosphere, and makes AGW
worse.
Wind and solar power sources only work from about 10% to 33% of the time. This
means that wind and solar facilities must be 3 to 10 times larger than their rated
power output; and it means that there must be systems in place for storing or
sharing power, to be used at times when the local wind or solar are not working.
This massive 3 to 10 time overbuilding and the need to store or share power, make
the cost prohibitive – perhaps impossible to finance. Estimated US total cost for
wind is more than $28 trillion. Estimated US total cost for solar is more than $45
trillion. (The proposed budget for the US for 2014 was $3.77 trillion.)
Future biofuels show great promise. Today’s biofuels do nothing to reduce AGW.
Biofuel production and processing release amounts of CO2 comparable to amounts
59
that would be released by the use of fossil fuels in place of the biofuels produced.
Thus biofuels make AGW worse, not better. Cultivation of the plants used for
biofuels takes up space that would be used to grow food crops, driving up food
prices and increasing malnutrition world-wide.
The US Department of Energy claims to be addressing AGW problems, but it does
nothing to truly reduce the effects of global warming:
1. The US Department of Energy supports the production of biofuels (biodiesel
and gasohol) which continue to make AGW worse.
2. If wind and solar were implemented on a scale sufficient to address AGW,
their costs would exceed the size of the US gross national product ($16
trillion) by at least 50% – yet the US Department of Energy continues to
support wind and solar.
3. Even with projected power plant conversions from coal to natural gas, and
other projected plant conversions to carbon sequestration (CCS), the use of
natural gas (methane) and coal will continue to make AGW worse –yet the
US Department of Energy continues to support coal plant conversions to
CCS or to methane.
4. D-T Fusion uses expensive radioactive fuel and facilities costing many
billions of dollars; and D-T Fusion produces dangerous neutrons and
radioactive waste - yet the US Department of Energy supports D-T Fusion.
Aneutronic fusion promises to be the most reliable, least expensive form of energy
able to completely replace all fossil fuels. It is far safer than coal, nuclear fission,
or D-T Fusion, and its full implementation would be certain to mitigate AGW; yet
the Energy Department continues to ignore aneutronic fusion. Only the US Navy
supported it - just barely- while seeming to hide their project from the Department
of Energy and dribbling out 2 or 3 million dollars a year for 15 years: barely
enough to keep the program alive, and not nearly enough to buy the giant ion and
electron guns, which are a necessary step to proving the concept. Navy couldn't
get adequate funding from the Defense Department, because the Energy
Department is required to develop Navy Nuclear Propulsion (and that's published
policy). EMC2 is seeking private venture capital to continue. The Energy
Department is not interested but China and Korea are. Iran has already spent $8
million on the necessary technology. Congress needs to correct this problem
without delay, by MOVING $40 MILLION FROM THE FOSSIL FUEL (CCS PROJECT) LINE
TO A NEW POLYWELL (EMC2) LINE IN THE 2015 ENERGY BUDGET.
60
William W. Flint
Bill is a 73 year-old retired teacher and wannabe author. He had his left knee
replaced in fall of 2013 and three stents implanted in March of 2009. His oldest
son is a logistics facilitator for NATO; next-oldest son is a chemistry (and
occasional physics) teacher and coach; his daughter is a California designerentrepreneur; his youngest son designs power transmission equipment packages for
the national grid. Bill’s wife is an “almost retired” business manager for the State
of Washington.
Bill was a nuclear weapon certified electronic warfare officer and combat crew
member from fall of 1965 through summer of 1968. He was a Physics, Chemistry,
and Math teacher from fall of 1968 through spring of 2009. He holds a 1976 MEd
in Physical Science (Chemistry and Physics Teaching) from Western Washington
University; has been trained in nuclear and chemical instrumentation, and has been
a nuclear fusion groupie from 1968 to the present day, although he can remember
sitting at the dining room table, studying Life magazine diagrams of the proposed
Nautilus submarine nuclear reactor as early as 1952; and he became a Polywell
cheerleader shortly after reading Tom Ligon’s Polywell article in Analog.
He is author of a 2 computer self-help books; a physics textbook, 2 lab manuals,
and 2 teacher guides; a Polywell reference book, a Polywell kid’s book, an
anthology contribution, 2 Polywell websites; plus several miscellaneous sciencefiction efforts. None of it has been published except one of the self-help books, the
anthology contribution and the textbook (sort of); but one of the science fiction
efforts recently enjoyed a brief sojourn as a Kindle book on Amazon. He wrote the
Kindle book as an attempt to promote public interest in the Polywell, but it was
less than successful. So he tried again –as he had in the past- to provoke his
Congressman’s interest in the Polywell. That attempt failed as well, but led
immediately to this book, which he did manage to present personally to his
Congressman (who did promise to read it!).
61
One Small Favor (Maybe Two)
If you believe and can support the ideas in this little book, and…
A. …someone sent it to you as an email attachment, please forward it, along
with a brief explanatory email message, to at least one intelligent, receptive
friend and/or your Senator or Member of Congress.
B. …you downloaded it from polywellnuclearfusion.com or aneutronics.org
please attach it to an brief explanatory email and send it to at least one
intelligent, receptive friend and/or your Senator or Member of Congress.
C. …someone gave it to you as a paper copy, please give it to an intelligent,
receptive friend or your Senator or your Member of Congress along with an
explanatory letter.
D. …you are a Senator or a Congressman, please support or initiate action to
MOVE $40 MILLION FROM THE FOSSIL FUEL (CCS PROJECT) LINE TO A NEW
POLYWELL (EMC2) LINE IN THE 2015 ENERGY BUDGET .
E. …you want to make paper copies to distribute for educational purposes, at
no profit, I hereby grant you the permission to do so, no charge. However,
you may want to consider copying pages 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 24, 35, 36, and
53 in color, because they won’t make much sense in black and white.
If you do not believe or cannot support this book, and it is a paper copy, please
mail it with an explanatory note detailing the reasons for your objections, to the
author, William W. Flint, 584 Glacier Ln, Port Angeles WA 98363.
If you do not believe or cannot support this book, and it is a PDF or other
electronic copy, please email a short note detailing the reasons for your objections
to [email protected]
Thank you!
62