ASPO Conference - first evening

The initial report on the conference papers was getting a bit long, so I split it into afternoon and evening parts, and the second follows.

Again, there were three sessions in the final afternoon part of the program and I chose to go to the one chaired by Ron Swenson on Energy Alternatives. The first speaker was Charlie Hall who pointed out that the neo-classical economists and those who advocated different political theories had found it easier to justify their claims in an environment where oil became increasingly available to support GDP growth. However we are now entering a period of oil supply decline, when perhaps the “biophysical economics” theories will gain more credence.

Largely his talk covered the considerations of Energy Cost on the production of fuel, and with rising cost and renewables not being viable in parts of the USA he wondered if our best days were behind us.

The change in energy cost can be seen from oilfields that once produced oil but now produce water with a small oil content. The energy cost has therefore to be paid by an increasingly small fraction of the volume pumped. There are two impacts as the energy costs per unit of energy go up, the first impacts the industry, while the second impacts the consumer. As greater portions of income are required to meet fuel bills (travel, heat etc) then the amount available for discretionary spending is reduced.

Bill James talked of the need to go from the principles of Government Directives driving research to more properly taking advantage of “the nature of invention.” Cell phones have gone from non-existent for the common man in 1984, to the point where they are now ubiquitous. He noted that we don’t need “know-how”, but rather “know-what.” Driving to use the $40 worth of gas in a car tank, could be done on a train for a cost of $1.12. Yet we continue to pay to use the car. Increasing oil prices cut family discretionary income by $2,000 a year in the last three. He quoted Edison’s lines that:

"Sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. Perhaps they are the same, but we will take that up later. Now the trick was, you see, to concentrate the juice and liberate it as you needed it. The old-fashioned way inaugurated by Jove, of letting it off in a clap of thunder, is dangerous, disconcerting and wasteful. It doesn't fetch up anywhere. My task was to subdivide the current and use it in a great number of little lights, and to do this I had to store it. And we haven't really found out how to store it yet and let it off real easy-like and cheap. Why, we have just begun to commence to get ready to find out about electricity. This scheme of combustion to get power makes me sick to think of--it is so wasteful. It is just the old, foolish Prometheus idea, and the father of Prometheus was a baboon."

"When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy.".

He feels that the next 12 months will be critical to facing the problems of peak oil, but that it is so far advanced that innovations must come.

While families might plant Victory Gardens one of the major expenses ($10,300 a year on average) is for transportation. Yet in commuting one usually has to swop time and inconvenience for money if one changes to public transport. A bus, for example, will average, in town, a speed of 8 mph, and light rail only 18, while a car gets 24 mph on average. This he used as a lead in to the discussion of the Jpods concept a small, personal light rail commuting vehicle that can carry individuals, under computer control around a network. As he noted “rollercoaster mechanics in an internet network.” The pods will be small and light, in contrast with the heavy frames of current vehicles, thus requiring less energy to move, and which can be provided by overhead solar panels. While this is largely still conceptual (though a prototype was shown at the ASPO Conference in Sacramento 2 years ago) he noted the system in Morgantown installed after the 1975 oil shock, and which has run 110 million passenger miles without injury and 99% reliability. That system is now seeking to expand. Podcars themselves have become of sufficient interest that there is now a conference devoted to their use.

Carey King was the last speaker before the reception, He stressed the importance of ensuring that an analysis of energy costs be comprehensive. Adding different elements that are not always considered can significantly reduce overall EROI values. The example he gave pointed out that, for example, a wind turbine might have an EROI initially set at 30:1. But as one included the energy required to build the turbine, to run it in the field, and to manage it from the corporation headquarters then this number could easily fall toward 10. If one then includes other costs (which have an energy component) such as debt financing etc. the value continues to fall. Thus the final number has , for particular installations, fallen to a peak of 13:1 and a low of less than 1:1. This is not something that is just peculiar to wind, natural gas may start with an EROI of 30 and lose 30% of that when quality adjusted and service included. These charges become even of more impact when the raw fuel is converted, such as for example when coal is burned to produce electricity and where, unless the heat is otherwise used, it must be disposed of giving a 33% energy conversion efficiency.

Following the reception, the Keynote session for the Conference was chaired by Tom Whipple who welcomed delegates and introduced Congressman Roscoe Bartlett to give the Overall Introduction to the Conference.

Congressman Bartlett has been a staunch voice for the community since I started coming to the ASPO meetings. (I put Stuart’s Thursday review up first so that those with eagle eyes might note I was there). I was fortunate to hear him at the meeting in Denver in 2005 and his remarks have remained on target and of concern – to us, if not his colleagues, since.

He was glad to note that Admiral Rice was the first speaker since the JOE Report recognized with its

By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.

the reality of the situation. He used the report to emphasize that China will not reach the levels of oil production anticipated in the general community by 2030. He noted that, within a decade, it is likely that Iran will be an oil importer. He noted that OPEC with 75% of the remaining reserves, has 42% of existing production; the Former Soviet Union with 12.7% of the reserves has 16.8% of present global production; and the US with 2% of the reserves, has 8% of the production.

China has already in place a “Post Peak Oil” strategy. It includes conservation, domestic supply, diversification, environmental impact issues, and international cooperation. It already buys oil from all over the world, including that still in the ground, and has a major Blue water Navy under construction to protect those interests. They are graduating seven times as many engineers as we are. They know you cannot rebuild exhausted reserves.

Admiral Rice was, until last week, the director of Strategy and Policy at the Joint Forces Command. They put out the JOE report although he took over from General Mattis. Since then he has received considerable push back on the contents of the report including comments on climate change; peak oil, China and Russia – and since these came from both sides, he felt that General Mattis had got it about right.

The problem that the Armed Forces face is that of the reliability and continuity of the logistics of supply, particularly to forward troops. It can cost up to $400 a gallon to get that fuel to outposts in Afghanistan. But it is in the primary purchase of that fuel, and the cost to the country, that he sees the greatest threat. When we spend $386 billion on overseas oil, 39% of which comes from dangerous or unstable regimes who funnel that money for use against us there is a problem. We pay Venezuela $60 million a day, enough for 2 modern fighter aircraft, and they have bought several. China is buying the fuel, resources and refineries they need to ensure their supply and to provide safe means to bring it to China.

Russia having rebuilt its economy on oil and gas income, is now aggressively rebuilding its armed forces. Our military recognize that they must change, an overly great reliance on oil means that if a tanker sinks a fleet cannot move, or aircraft fly (unless nuclear powered ships). And so there is a move to include renewable power plant in facilities. This includes solar at Nellis AFB, and geothermal at China Lake. The intent is to get half the power from renewable sources by 2020. But, while the military knows and recognizes the problem, it does not know how to carry this message to the rest of the country.

Dr Michael Klare was the final speaker, and discussed the problem of energy security and conflict, topics on which he lectures. He noted that we are in an intense, unrecognized, struggle for power and wealth. The most recent significant change in this has been that China has become the #1 consumer of energy in the world. The USA led for the last 100 years, but have now been overtaken. And on our part having exhausted our own reserves, we are now trying to exhaust everyone else’s.

While China and the USA both now consume around 100 Quads of energy, by 2035 the US will increase demand to 115 Quads. China will increase power consumption, at present trends, to 180 Quads. They currently get:
62% of their energy from coal.
19% from oil.
10% from renewables
5% from natural gas
3% from nuclear.

He sees the continued, or perhaps increasing dependence on coal as being disastrous because of the climate change effects. He does not see how they can import 10 mbd of oil in 2035 when the global supply will be less than it is today.

As a result conflict appears inevitable. We must however hope that they will increasingly rely on renewable sources, but even there we must chase and beat them (they are already leading producers) to remain competitive and to ensure our, an our children’s futures. It is essential that we accelerate change to renewable sources.

Questions from the floor included one from Bianca Jagger on how we could get the public to adopt the military view (though how widespread the JOE report thinking is within the military remains in doubt).

Tom Whipple noted that ASPO has changed its directors and is moving to Washington D.C. just so that it can have more influence, but it was Congressman Bartlett who realistically noted that we will need a major crisis for that to happen.

Unfortunately many of the “questions” in the remaining moments became statements of different viewpoints rather than questions to the Panel. So I will report back later on the second day of the Conference.

Energy Summit - the last talks

The final part of the Energy Summit in Columbia began with a series of talks from faculty on the four campuses. It was divided into four tracks, Power Generation (which I was at and will write about); Transportation and Biofuels; Energy Infrastructure; and Materials for Energy Applications. Although not up yet, the main site for the Summit is adding videos of the different sections, and I will add those references behind the track titles as they become available. At present the Keynote by Boone Pickens ; the Governor’s remarks and the first day’s speakers after 3 pm (covering my third post) are available. I will list the other posts from earlier in the Summit at the end of this piece.

I was the first of the speakers up in the Power Generation track, and spoke about the predictions that have been made concerning the life of fossil fuels, focusing on that of David Rutledge , which predicts that peak coal will come sooner than is currently anticipated. I expressed some doubt that his predictions are correct, with similar concerns regarding the work of Dr Hall and his students, about the increasing energy cost to mine future coal. To illustrate why I briefly covered the development of three mining machines, that which we call Hydrominer, (a longwall waterjet machine concept that moved from the lab to surface trials to underground trials in Germany); that which we call Rapiers, which was developed in collaboration with folk at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; and a waterjet assisted auger. By cutting a deep slot around the outer perimeter of the coal mass to be removed, the constraining surrounding pressure is removed, and the coal is more easily removed and fragmented, with lower energy cost.

I was followed by Mark Prelas, of UMC Nuclear Engineering, who talked (the links are to the paper abstracts) about nuclear energy conversion. The basic method of extracting power from nuclear energy has focused on the steam cycle for 150 years, and he is looking to using a photon path to achieve a better efficiency in energy extraction. It is, perhaps, the equivalent of the nuclear light bulb. The concept has been used by the military, and would go through the stages of fuel to fluorescer to photons to either chemical, laser of electrical energy. He discussed various fluorescers which could be matched with PV cells to improve efficiency of transfer. I this way he could move from 50% plant efficiency to 70% (At present the Calloway nuclear power plant at Fulton, MO operates at around 37% efficiency). Even with pebble bed reactors, and higher temperatures a 50% efficiency is likely to be tops conventionally. This new concept would, however, require a new build and is unlikely to be around before 2040.

Anthony Caruso from the Kansas City Campus then talked about the need for neutron generation detection. He showed that it only required less than 1% of waste to go astray and there would be enough plutonium out that could get into the hands of terrorists and provide a major problem. A racquetball sized sphere would hold 2.7 kg of plutonium and would be safe to carry but small enough and easy enough to conceal to cause serious problems. He then elaborated on the potential risk, and the need to develop more effective detectors (which he is doing).

Jimmy Adegoke from Kansas City, then talked about a program that is being run to assess climate change risks commenting that “we are beyond debate that we have global warming!” (If you look at the top right of the three curves shown on the main page of the Climate Research Unit at Hadley (the main British Climate monitoring site), you will see that all three curves – for Northern, Southern and Global temperature – have been trending down (showing global cooling) for about the last ten years). His group does a carbon footprint assessment with the intent of helping local industry both understand the impacts of legislation, at the local level. He discussed work with Congressman Markey’s subcommittee to establish the impact of climate change on the economy of the Midwest. He is assessing the effects of change on agriculture, water, energy and health at the local level. In his regional assessment he found that the carbon footprint broke down to roughly 2 million tons of Residential; 3 million tons of commercial; and 1.5 million tons of industrial generation. He has a carbon footprint calculator which helps identify where savings can occur for individual operations.

We broke for lunch, and then returned to hear first Lea Kosnik, from UMSL, who had accompanied me to the radio station on the first day and whose subject is small and microturbine use to generate hydropower without the need for the dams across the waterways that are a pre-requisite for larger schemes. Their small size makes them easier to install, and to construct using easily available components of proven reliability. As I corrected back at the original post, there are some 5,000 sites, in Missouri alone, that could be used as installation sites for the technology. This gives a more reliable feed, when needed, to backstop some of the more intermittent sources, such as wind and solar. It also does not require the considerable planning of larger systems, and is unlikely to meet the local resistance that dams not generate.

Curt Elmore of MO S&T was next, talking about an emergency method of creating potable water in crisis. He and his colleagues set out to provide another source of water, after a natural disaster, other than military convoys handling out bottled water. He started looking at alternatives and found that UV is an effective disinfectant for water, and so designed a portable system (running at about $40k at the moment) to run from renewable sources. He began with hopes for a wind turbine as part of the package, but came to realize that this did not contribute enough, and that simple solar panels were adequate to provide the power to run the system and provide a clean water supply. Because it does not leave disinfectant in the water it cannot treat a recontamination problem, short of running the water back through the system. By using an ultracapacitor they were also able to get rid of batteries, and by using the pump on a water bowser that would bring water to the unit, it could be made smaller and more inexpensive. It was simple to get to 10 gpm, and with an individual using about 2 liters/day this would be more than adequate for a community. They are currently investigating commercialization.

The final speaker in the track was S.K. Loyalka from Columbia, describing a $3 million program that they have looking at very high temperature nuclear reactors. These are generally either Prismatic or Pebble Bed reactors, with the pebbles being spheres about the size of a tennis ball and stacked at around 400,000 in the reactor itself. In the process of passage they undergo some degradation and the study is looking at the fate of this dust, as well as “ball” behavior.

There was now a break, after which I wandered into the Clean Coal breakout panel, under the Vice Provost for Research at MO S&T, Dr Krishnmurthy. . Although less structured, with the panelists first making short remarks, before engaging in Q&A with the audience, Wandering in after the introductions I missed who was who, but there were some very realistic views presented from venture capitalists, a state senator, and others. After Dr Al-Dahhan had described some of the paths forward to generate clean coal, one of the panelists commented that this is not the sort of environment a venture capitalist likes to work in. He contrasted it with medical investment, where the funds required are reasonable (say $75 million) and the risk and rate of return are acceptable. In contrast CCS is larger by two orders of magnitude and this takes it beyond the interests of the venture capital market. This is a tough space to live in, and there are very few (2 out of 300) who might be interested in playing in this sandbox.

The Navy panelist (John Pazik) noted because of the way military budgets are constructed, rapid rises in fuel prices come out of the operating budgets of the commanders, and thus require sacrifice of something else.

Senator Shaefer, in looking at the political side, commented on how hard it is to get legislation through. Missouri relies on coal for 82-86% of its energy. With EPA mandated to rule on CO2 that leaves the state very vulnerable. And he commented that “scientists may say that this is the right thing to do, but politically it may not be possible.” He thinks that soon it will be impossible to build a coal-fired power station, and that the best CCS injection sites are shallow enough that the CO2 won’t stay liquid.

Vic Svec from Peabody pointed out that natural gas generates carbon dioxide, just as coal does. It is becoming the new method of power generation, but bear in mind that while we pay $0.065 per kWh, CA and NY are paying around $0.15 - $0.20 per kWh. We are going to continue to use coal, it is just going to stop being cheap to do so. He talked of doing CO2 injection to help oil EOR and that Missouri had the potential to do this in the Western part of the state. We have lost a decade however in making progress on this issue, where there are also concerns such as “can I inject CO2 under your house ? How deep? Etc” We need technology and technicians to control and bring down the price to make systems viable.

In the wide ranging Q&A the need for better communication was emphasized but the problems of finding qualified people remain, at all levels. And it was clear that campaigns to wean the country from coal in the next 10 years are unrealistic.

The final panel I went to was on infrastructure under Dr. Mariesa Crow of MO S&T.

Linda Martinez of MO DNR pointed out that with Missouri seeing 261,000 unemployed, the emphasis in getting jobs with green technology is paramount. Retraining is essential but we need to get all stakeholders involved in the planning of that. There are only a limited number of green jobs at the moment and we need to find how to grow them.

Barbara Kenny of NSF spoke of the goals of the Administration, and that the new stimulus money to NSF that would be used to give a higher success rate to proposals sent in to the agency. There is an interest in Renewable Energy Storage and in Green Building Technology.

In discussion the panelists concurred that improving Energy Efficiency is the first priority for moving forward and having a success. The State has just produced a wind may, and thus wind may be the second stage in the process.

Bill Downey of Kansas City Power and Light, looked at building a new plant, and how they assessed viable alternatives. He has been impressed with the speed of growth of renewable sources, and expects that they will generate 20% of power in the future. However getting public policy changed is a long struggle, even with gains in efficiency, though that is a bridge forward.

Brian Clevinger is a Venture Capitalist and he talked of the technologies at Universities and that “it was the worst of times, it was the even worser of times.” Venture Capital is down 40% in general but clean coal investments dropped 80%. New creative money is almost non-existent.

We have failed to focus on replacement energy for the systems that we currently use, so that, since the population has doubled, and is on its way to double again it is going to take all that we have got. Unfortunately many of the answers are yet to be palatable politically.

Given that many of the panel had mentioned efficiency as the logical first step and the low hanging fruit, I raised the question of Jevons Paradox. Which it appeared that no-one had heard of. (Which means that I will try and make it my topic for a tech talk tomorrow).

Similarly raising the question of Peak Oil and oilfield declines such as in Cantarell got no response. Rather they talked to public policy and how to get jobs. They talked of smart metering and some of the complexities of running controls on home energy systems from a central system. The comment was that, to date, the incentives are not enough to drive behavior.
And then we were done.

Earlier posts in this series covered the program; the keynote address by T. Boone Pickens; and the first invited speakers; the end of the first day; and the first part of the second day.

T7. On Augering, coal reserves and EROI.

Today I thought I would digress a little from the more methodical passage through history that I was taking in regard to coal mining to talk a little about coal reserves, coal resources and technology. It is a little focused towards some of the work that we developed some years ago, and so I give you that warning up front. I am going to try and keep it simple, and so those who know about what I write should bear that in mind.

When you find a seam of coal, if it is near the surface then the soil and rock can be removed from over the coal, the coal removed, and then the rock and soil are replaced. This is surface mining and I will cover that in a specific post later. At the same time there is a point where the coal is too deep for that process to be economical, and so underground mining takes place. There are two main methods of mining coal, room and pillar mining and longwall mining, and I’ll talk about them in separate posts also. Today however I want to cover that point where the seam has just become too deep to make it profitable to take any more of the cover from the coal. One method of mining at this point has been to send a small mining machine known as an auger in to mine out the coal, that is exposed at the edge of the mine.

The auger works in the same way as a wood bit that chews into a piece of wood, when you want to drill a large hole through it. There is a cutting head on the front of the machine that cuts into the coal, and then behind the head is a scroll feed that carries the coal out of the hole, to a point where it can be collected and taken away.

Auger cutting head (Cutting head. (Source BryDet Augers Note the head is shown without the picks that would be placed in the sockets on the face of the two perimeters.

Auger scroll

There is a small video of the process here

Typically the auger holes are placed relatively close together, and they are drilled on the order of 100 ft deep.

Auger holes (Source Lukhele )

One of the major reasons for the limitation that the auger will drill into the coal is related to the way in which the auger works. In just the same way as when you drill a hole with a wood auger, you have to push hard to get the bit to cut into the coal. But the push has to be transmitted down the flights of the spiral sections of the auger assembly. These are not very strong, and they rub against the walls of the hole that has been drilled, so that as the drill goes further into the coal, more of the push is used up in the rubbing friction between the scrolls and the wall of the hole. Also, if you push too hard after the auger is in the coal some distance then the scroll shafts can slightly buckle and this can thrust the auger head out of alignment so that it drills into either the roof or the floor.

The auger is thus a tool with a relatively limited role, though in that role it can be quite effective. Now here is the change that we made. If you take two or three small (0.04 inch diameter) nozzles and attach them to the front of the auger head, so that two cut on the outer edge of the hole, and one is on the inner diameter, then the jets of water that come out of the nozzles will cut into the coal. The jets should operate at around 7 – 10,000 psi, depending on what other rock is found to be in the coal. Typically these jets will cut into the coal about 6 – 9 inches ahead of the auger body as the head rotates. This breaks the central core of the coal free from the confinement of the surrounding coal, and when the head contacts the coal, it will break outwards in tension, in handle-able sized pieces. The push now required to move the machine into the coal is much lower (we had a student with one arm in a cast use a come-along to pull a 2-ft diameter machine into the face). Because the coal breaks so easily, and the force is so much lower, the scroll sections do not have to be so large, and without the need for the high thrust a smaller scroll, that does not contact the walls all the way around the hole, can be used. With this combination, since there is now no frictional limitation to the push, and the force required to pull the auger head into the coal is so much lower, the range of the machine can be extended from under a hundred feet, to several hundred feet.

The small blocks across the auger face show where the nozzles are mounted. (The sawdust is because we cut plywood to see the cutting pattern).

However there is an additional advantage to this change in design, and that comes about because the coal is now being cut with a water stream instead of with a mechanical tool. The pressure and cutting pattern of the stream can be adjusted so that the jet cannot continuously cut into the rock that overlies and underlies the coal. When the cutting pattern is controlled in that way, and with the lowered push being applied to move the auger head forward, the head cannot cut into the rock, but is held to follow the coal seam. The machine becomes inherently self-steering, and thus can drill further into the coal than its predecessor.

I have described this machine (which we only tested in the lab before the energy crisis of the 80’s went away) to make a relatively simple point. With very little change in the design of the auger – using existing pumps and other parts, we built a machine that could extend the range of mining from the highwall of the surface mine into coal that would otherwise be uneconomic to mine, for a distance of probably more than half-a-mile. (That is based on other research I’ll talk about another day). The innovation is but one of many that could be made to transition equipment being used today to allow it to mine coal that is only counted today as a resource and which people are quite quick to discount as being un-minable.

The economic need for coal is going to be such, however, remembering that all the solar and wind energy being currently used in the country adds up to the power output of only one medium sized coal mine, that we will be mining for a long time. As we do, and the easily recoverable coal goes, then in exactly the same way as innovation has made more difficult gas and oil resources into reserves, so we will see the same change occur with coal resources. And of those we have enough to see us through until new sources of power come along in the right scale and from that they will replace coal.

Jets on the auger face cutting into artificial coal

(Please note I have originally used photos and sketches from the internet for this piece, as I get more skilled in modeling I will replace them with my own. I will also more jet pictures later).